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THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



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Ci.orin Kill 1 



The DESERT and the ROSE 



BY 



tVvc. EDITH NICHOLL ELLISON 



A ulhor of 

The Human Touch, Etc. 




THE CORNHILL COMPANY 

BOSTON 






Copyright 1921 by 

THE CORNHILL COMPANY 

All Rights Reserved 



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5 CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

1. The Arrival of the Tenderfoot. 9 

2. The Graduation of the Tenderfoot. 17 

3. The Rise of the Year. 24 

4. The Rio Bravo, Irrigation and Crops. 34 

5. Summer Days and Nights. 52 

6. The Peon. 66 

7. The Indian, the Mexican and the Church. 87 

8. Minerals, Flora and Other Things. 100 

9. Noxious and Other Beasts. 113 

10. Dogs. 124 

11. Colts. 139 

12. Small Potatoes and Thoroughbreds. 153 

13. The Wonderful Country. 166 

14. Healthseekers and Matters Pertinent. 175 

15. Dawn and Dark. 186 

16. Mountaineers. 197 

17. The High Ranges. 204 

18. Crossing the Desert. 213 



We wish to acknowledge indebtedness to the Chi- 
cago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway and The 
Raymond and Whitcomb Co., for permission to use 
several of the illustrations that appear herein. 
THE CORNHILL COMPANY 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING PAGE. 

Frontispiece 

12 

28 

40 

46 

52 

72 

102 

161 

167 

187 



Cloudcroft 

The Organ Mountains 

An Acequia 

Making Adobe Bricks 

A Flooded Ranch 

A Mule Team 

Mexican Quarter, Las Cruces 

Round Up 



Snow on the Organs 



Leasburg Diversion Dam 
Scene in the Mesilla Valley 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



NO MORE 

Old homes left lonely 'neath a lonely moon, 

Peopled with silent guests each named No More : 
Familiar faces lost to us, or flown 

Over the River to the Unknown Shore: 
Things dear, things human, unf orgotten hours : 

Dawn on the peaks, songs in the midnight trees : 
Eve's brooding breast or noontide's storming 
showers, 

Fragrance of Summer and the deep drone of bees. 

Say not No More ! Use any words but these ! 

Fool us with phantoms, cheat us and depart — 
Say not No More! For none of Fate's decrees 

Harsher than this e'er wring man's helpless 
heart : 
Death, merciless or kind, our birthright is : 

Not in such melancholy haunting of our door 
See we life's saddest ghosts: not in this 

Lurks the incomparable pang we call No More ! 



FOREWORD 

These jottings from the journalof aranchwoman 
in New Mexico bear date several years removed 
from the present, therefore may appear at first 
glance out of date. That such is not the case soon 
becomes self evident. Comparatively few amend- 
ments are needed to bring them up to date. Cli- 
mate, ranching methods and so forth are not sus- 
ceptible to drastic changes, even when abetted by a 
Farm Bureau, an Agricultural College, farm clubs 
of sorts and other aids to the agriculturist. 

The writer came to the dry and sunny climate of 
Southern New Mexico for the benefit of an almost 
lifelong rheumatic disorder, and soon after reach- 
ing her destination decided that the Mesilla Valley 
was the appointed spot. She purchased a good 
ranch in that fertile Valley, some forty miles north 
of El Paso, Texas. Unfamiliar with the methods 
of farming under irrigation, she yet contrived by 
ceaseless mental rather than severe physical appli- 
cation, above all by taking thought for the morrow, 
not merely to avoid loss but to realize annually a 
fair amount on her investment — enough, that is, 
to make a tolerable record for a healthseeker unfit 
for hard labor, and a tenderfoot into the bargain. 

All this happened before the building of the 
Elephant Butte Dam, the nucleus of the Rio Grande 
Reclamation project undertaken by the Govern- 
ment, but the cost of which is ultimately settled by 
the ranching population of the Rio Grande Valley 



above and below El Paso. Statistics in regard to 
the Dam and its works, together with masses of 
information appertaining thereto, are widely circu- 
lated and suffice for their purpose. Though by no 
means the largest irrigation project in the world, as 
claimed for it by those ignorant of the huge and long 
established undertakings in distant lands, the Ele- 
phant Butte Dam is entitled to rank among the 
greatest of modern achievements. 

The writer has been urged to set forth the suc- 
cesses and failures of the Rio Grande project. Such 
a task is obviously not to be considered. Allusion 
will be made in the proper places to present and past 
conditions compared one with the other, but the fol- 
lowing pages aim to represent little beyond the per- 
sonal experiences of a practical ranchwoman, ad- 
vertise nothing, and endeavor to steer clear of more 
or less acrimonious discussion. The skilled and 
industrious rancher made money in the Valley long 
ere the Rio Grande project came into existence and 
his like continues to do so, only more of it owing to 
a regulated water supply. The farming person the 
world over must be a manager, not only a worker. 
Unfortunately the combination is not as common 
as it should be. 

One comment may be permitted, as a matter of 
justice and in the interest of the farmer, namely 
this: had old residents — thoroughly acquainted as 
they necessarily are with soil, climate and the 
vagaries of the Great River — been consulted, some 
costly blunders and not a little sore feeling would 
have been avoided. 



Last but not least: let not any person imagine 
that he can pick some cap and fit it to any Valley 
dweller's head, for of this joy he is deprived. In 
this book neither caps nor heads are found to match. 



CHAPTER I 
THE ARRIVAL OF THE TENDERFOOT 

As OUR train trailed up the Mesilla Valley from 
El Paso there came into view alfalfa fields, or- 
chards, vineyards, trees, homes palpably inhabited 
by "white folks." In short, the vaunted attractions 
of the Valley were actually materializing. 

After we had alighted at the little station the 
prospect continued to please. It was midwinter, so 
the earth was arrayed in shades of drab and brown, 
but over all was the radiant high altitude sky, and 
in the centre of the town the twin crimson domes of 
the Catholic church ; and there was mistletoe on the 
cottonwoods, its berries pearl white against a back- 
ground of sapphire, and none to warn the future 
ranchwoman of its evil nature and its sins. Beyond 
towered the awful steeps of the Organ Mountains, 
their jagged spires and pinnacles casting sharp yet 
aerial shadows in the rarefied atmosphere of nearly 
four thousand feet above sea level. 

I shall continue to use the term awful steeps in 
regard to our beloved Organs despite the fact that 
they are only a paltry ten thousand feet or so above 
the sea, an elevation disdained by certain other New 
Mexican mountains. But there is a great deal in 
appearances, whatever may be adduced to the con- 
trary. Contour, for example, counts for much and 
in this respect these shining organ pipes piercing 



10 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

the high sky are unique. Moreover, it is generally 
conceded that Southern New Mexico and Arizona 
can display the finest atmospheric effects on the 
continent ; also that for every gain in scenic grand- 
eur northward bound just so much is lost in color. 

Unimaginative indeed must that newcomer be 
who can roam around this section of country, if 
only bent on ranch hunting, without absorbing 
something of its romantic history or being impressed 
by the picturesqueness of his surroundings. Years 
have slid by since the marvel alone of desert sunris- 
es, sunsets and afterglows was first beheld, yet the 
primal glory holds us yet in thrall. In winter and 
early spring are all these at their best. Many an 
evening may we watch, bewildered, the sunset 
south, east and west; wherever we turn there it is 
to confront us — a riot of color flinging itself up and 
across the indescribably tender blue of the high sky, 
a blue that defies description or imitation. They 
linger long, these passionate rainbow hues, — spread- 
ing tentacles of splendor, indefinable cloudlets edged 
with rose — a pageant evidently not intended for 
mere mortal vision, but part of the always detached, 
immortal scenery in which by chance we find place. 
And perhaps this is as it should be, for the majority 
of human beings pay it slight heed. The hotel sup- 
per has started, and to that important function all 
but ourselves have fled. And when at length we fol- 
low, we return later to behold a transparent rosy 
veil drawn across the wide heavens through which 
the star of evening shines undimmed. 

One day we climb the eastern mesa and pass 



TH E DESERT AND THE ROSE 11 

through the Mexican town. To this day it has not 
materially altered. Each of the mud-dauber's nests 
called home has a corral attached, fenced about with 
wattled sticks, as often by the fouqidera which 
breaks in spring into gorgeous scarlet blossoms, or 
sometimes by a mud wall. Everywhere live crea- 
tures are roped according to the Mexican manner, 
although the roping of the errant hen until her duty 
for the day is performed is not seen in New as in 
Old Mexico. Four posts stuck in the ground, a roof 
of brush on which the corn crop is piled, walls, if 
any, made of wattled sticks — such are the inex- 
pensive and by no means to be despised barns still 
common in this section, made possible by the short, 
usually dry winters, and desirable in view of the 
high cost of lumber. Such barns combine the ad- 
vantages of warmth and ventilation, and if rein- 
forced with adobe mud suffice even for blooded 
stock after they are acclimated. 

Here in the Mexican quarter signs of content and 
cheer greet our eyes. The merciless aridity of the 
land above the Valley is coaxed by many a flower 
loving sefiora into producing oases of bloom, fenced 
against the incursions of goats, cows and burros. 
Even in this winter season notes of color run 
through the browns and drabs like the notes of a 
boy's soprano above the deep voiced choir. And 
everywhere bobbing along the levels, appearing and 
disappearing, is the ubiquitous Mexican Hat — in 
later days doomed alas! to permanent disap- 
pearance. 

From the eastern mesa the beauty of the Valley — 



12 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

the Rio Grande smitten by the sunlight gleaming 
here and there its length along — lies beneath us, a 
Vale of Promise, protected by the western mesa and 
far mountain ranges. Behind us rise the Organs, 
rich in ore. In the centre of the Valley picture 
crouches the town, boasting at this date only a few 
of the brick buildings, including so-called bunga- 
lows, in which those who prefer Progress to Com- 
fort may be as uncomfortable as they please. A 
mile or two to the southward we see the College of 
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, already equipped 
with an experiment station, although destined to a 
larger and more far-reaching future. 

In another place the cultivation of this fruit- 
ful Vale since prehistoric times will be spoken of 
more in detail. Its later history is concerned with 
its struggle for civilized settlement, beginning about 
1825 and subsiding into tranquillity some time in 
the i88o's, when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa 
Fe railroad was completed. Las Cruces has well 
earned its name of The Crosses. In days not so 
long past cross after cross dotted the soil, marking 
the spots where each in his turn American or Mex- 
ican settler succumbed to the tomahawk of the 
Apache, and long after my first acquaintance with 
the Valley one large cross in front of the Catholic 
church bore the inscription TO THE UNKNOWN 
DEAD. Haciendas, or fortified dwellings, still 
exist, each built around a patio, its outer windows 
missing or inconspicuous, and in one wall a great 
arched gateway for the admission of wagons when 
Apaches were a perpetual menace. A drive down 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 13 

the Valley leads us past a projecting butte from the 
shelter of which bands of savages leaped time and 
again upon the stage coach following the long trail 
from California, often murdering driver and pas- 
sengers, leaving the terrified horses to swing the 
bloodstained vehicle on to Las Cruces or Mesilla. 
In after years mine was the privilege of meeting 
again and again two Apaches — "Government Pets," 
as the Oldest Inhabitant somewhat bitterly styled 
this type of Indian — boys from the Reservation. All 
I can say is that if, so far as appearances went, 
these chips of the old block resembled the block, 
then the tales I have been told of the raiding of 
ranches in the Valley were very far from over- 
drawn. After thus anathematizing the Apache it 
is but just to recur to the records of Government 
folly, and worse, which were to some extent re- 
sponsible for western massacres. "This wasteful 
and bloody war," writes Mr. Bancroft, alluding 
to that waged with the notorious Apache chief, Vic- 
torio, "was the result of the corrupt policy of the 
United States Government and the greed of the 
white settler." Neither is there anything original 
in the assertion that military leaders proved them- 
selves alone competent to deal at once equitably and 
firmly with the Indians. " 'Tis an old tale and often 
told," that of ill informed civilians abrogating to 
themselves knowledge and wisdom possessed only 
by those on the spot — namely, the soldiers. Many 
a nameless trooper in days of Indian raids offered 
his life freely in defence of the helpless, even as 
"unhonored and unsung" nameless thousands of- 



14 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

fered theirs durin^^ the great world war. 

No long term of years, therefore, had elapsed on 
my first settling in the Valley since the Apaches 
had made life frightful for its inhabitants, protect- 
ed though the Valley was by two army posts. In 
another place it will be told from whence this tribal 
nation obtained its frightfulness. Neither was the 
Mexican, bred up in mortal terror as he was of the 
Apache, an entirely collected and reliable person. 
Wh-en full of red wine occasions arose — nay, still 
arise — on which his feelings were too many for 
him. Ponies are scarce and feed high in these later 
days, or no doubt he would still on Saturday nights 
be racing in dozens instead of in twos and threes 
along the country roads, screeching, and maybe fir- 
ing a six shooter into empty air. An innocuous 
method of blowing off superfluous emotions, it may 
be said, so long as sheriff or deputy prefers not 
to hear him, but it robs the householder of the sleep 
of peace. But there was a time when the youthful 
peon was not quite such a harmless idiot; for the 
first thing a Mexican of the least intelligent variety 
does when scared or excited is to shoot, and 
this unpleasant habit often got him into trouble with 
his more wily and self-controlled Indian kinsman. 

Nevertheless it is the Indian in the Mexican 
which preserves in him, not only his picturesque 
qualities but others more desirable yet. To this sub- 
ject allusion will be made later. Our first powerful 
impression of the Indian touch was received one 
Sunday afternoon when without warning we came 
on a scene seething with a primeval something that 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 15 

stirred the blood. It was a Mexican horse race. The 
animals provided for this then favorite pastime — 
still popular but not so easy of. attainment — were 
graded and therefore lending grace and beauty to 
the wild scene. The road was lined with vehicles, 
caballeros, pedestrians — both races represented, 
every white or brow^n face tense with excitement. 
The Mexican jockeys were bare footed and bare 
headed, their swarthy locks bound Indian wise, 
white cotton shirts and drawers their racing attire. 
The frantic steeds reared and plunged, their riders 
sticking to them like centaurs ; for the horses were 
neither saddled nor blanketed, and the bridles were 
just hair ropes looped around the muzzles. 

A shot was fired, and amid the yells of the crowd 
away they went, vanishing in a storm of dust, while 
we sank back with ejaculations of delight. 

'That was fineT 

It was. 

The Mexican inherits from the ages a certain 
supple quality of limbs and body, and provided he 
is anything of a horseman is in his element on the 
back of a horse, although for ornamental purposes 
he prefers the splendor of silver mounted saddle 
and tasselled bridle. You are in high favor with him 
when he presents you with a beautifully braided 
bridle. The Far Western American, generally 
speaking, is more or less helpless when deprived of 
his cumbrous and weighty saddle in which he sits 
as in a deep chair. Probably he has never rounded 
up a steer in his life, yet he adopts the cowboy 
equipment and the cowboy style of riding — both 



16 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

seemly and necessary in their place but altogether 
ludicrous when acquired by the plain citizen. When 
affected by women it is in very truth worse than 
grotesque ! 

Indians were sequestered in reservations and 
raids things of the past when the home question 
for this writer was finally decided. Not only so, but 
it can be proved that for many, many years exist- 
ence in Southern New Mexico has been more peace- 
ful, serene and secure than in many an eastern 
community, and this despite occasional alarms in 
recent times of border raids — alarms which so far 
have never materialized. And what was it that de- 
cided the home question? Must it be confessed 
that it was not wholly the rich if neglected land, 
the fruit trees in bearing, a magnificent Cottonwood 
spreading sheltering arms over a spacious, solidly 
built adobe dwelling, the admirable possibilities of 
the ranch from a farming point of view that turned 
the scales? What was it, then? 

An attractive drive bordered with china, poplar 
and paradise trees, rose bushes before the door — 
and bounding the horizon, a perpetual yet variable 
vision of beauty, the soaring heights of the Organ 
Mountains. Poor reasoning this, no doubt, for a 
prospective farmer, and yet not without its proven 
worth. 

Many contingencies, otherwise unbearable, if 
there be such a word in Life's merciless dictionary, 
can be endured when the eyes may be lifted to the 
Eternal Hills. 



CHAPTER II 

THE GRADUATION OF THE TENDER- 
FOOT 

It is a truism to remark that what a man learns 
before he makes his home in a given section and 
what he learns afterward are wide as the poles asun- 
der and none could realize this more profoundly 
than one who journeyed from New York to make a 
home in a far country. For the first few years 
every year finds the alert person still learning, views 
and opinions constantly widening and becoming 
more worth while. Therefore when settled inhabi- 
tants read or hear of some author tarrying with us 
for a few weeks for the purpose of "writing up the 
country," quiet smiles have been known to give 
place to yells of derision. 

If the farmer works his own land with the aid 
possibly of a growing son or two, thus dispensing 
with hired labor, his sky should be as unclouded as 
that of any farming person here below — only more 
so. Even that question of hired labor (until these 
war days) need not be overwhelming; but the Mex- 
ican laborer will be attended to later. At least the 
farm hand in New Mexico brings his dinner pail 
with him, and the farmer's wife is not overburd- 
ened with cooking for outsiders. Not only so but 
provided she be in good health and accustomed to 
work, and has no young babies, she may carry on a 
profitable egg and butter business, attend to her 



18 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

house and still have leisure for "social advanta.ces." 
All the better for her if she is not besieged by pre- 
dilections other than social. She has her buggy or 
even motorcar, and as compared with her prototype 
in the east she should not be overworked. A Mex- 
ican woman for the washing and heaviest drudgery 
is not a rare visitant in the ranch home. As for 
the children — the eastern mother soon learns a 
salutary lesson. The independence of the wee New 
Mexican-born tots is in marked contrast with the 
helplessness of the nurse-or-mother-herded flock 
further east or west. Take a New Mexican child 
by the hand and lead him or her round? Not on your 
life ! Either sex is amply able to proceed without ac- 
cident to school or elsewhere along country roads 
or automobile infested streets. Tiny mites below 
school age may often be seen "out on their own." 
So it goes with the children. One may be driving, 
and behold rushing upon buggy or car comes an 
apparently runawav steed, riderless at that. Not 
at all. As the wild animal approaches a little boy, 
or possibly two such midgets, comes into view on its 
back, urging or controlling at his own good pleas- 
ure. Exceptions to the rule of juvenile indepen- 
dence there are, of course, but they are exceptions. 
And yet for the Tenderfoot there must always be 
a first day, a nightmare of a day, when the conten- 
tion with novel conditions begins. Recollections 
of certain forlorn hours, when too disheartened to 
appreciate the uniqueness, the artistic values, of 
mv environment I inwardly lay down and died, en- 
able me to sympathize with the fledgling Tender- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 19 

foot — unless he be robust and surrounded by a fam- 
ily. On him or her I do not squander pity. Nor in 
all the present up-to-dateness is compassion really 
obligatory. 

But when a woman is far from robust, has an 
embarrassing (yet occasionally cheering) diversity 
of tastes, looks after her own ranch, has periodic 
calamities in her home which often necessitate night 
as well as day work, existence has its wearing side. 
Every variety of live stock must receive personal 
supervision if it is to prosper. Stock cannot be 
abandoned to the untender mercies of Mexican help, 
although as will be told there are Mexicans who 
prove themselves infinitely more trustworthy than 
Americans in this respect — and in some others too. 

And in addition to these trifles there was — nay 
is often to this day where the older and usually more 
reliable peon is concerned — the language to be rec- 
koned with. Ah, if it were a language! But it is 
not. It is a patois. Frantic appeals are made to 
Spanish dictionaries and grammars but to discover 
that in cases too numerous to mention the Spanish 
and the Mexican word have scarcely even a blood 
relationship. Then out of window go those exasper- 
ating volumes, and the stranger in a strange land, 
settling into a strange home, must banish more im- 
portant concerns from the harassed mind and 
gather up stray weeds of Mexican speech from the 
wayside — finding them after all sufficient for the 
daily round. A simple receipt for fluency seems to 
be the following: Sit down hard somewhere near 
the tail end of every sentence and bawl. Or, as was 



20 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

once pithily remarked: Shout in scallops, and swal- 
low the lower point of every scallop. 

As for neighbors — they are helpful or the re- 
verse. In my earliest tenderfoot days I had one 
uncommonly gifted ; she had commonsense. To her 
I flew for advice — not on farming matters, for with 
those she troubled herself no whit, but w^hen other 
problems yet more vital pressed for w^ise solution. 
When she said: If I were you I would do thus or 
so, her suggestion presented itself at once as the 
one right thing to do, and a load rolled from my 
overburdened shoulders. Such persons are rare 
as w^ell as priceless friends, and when they fail to 
live out their allotted span the world is left the poor- 
er for their departure. There is such a thing as 
seeing too much of both sides, and these good coun- 
sellors hold the balance true; each one revolves 
around his or her axis, never straying away to in- 
vestigate the axes of other individuals or speculat- 
ing as to how these axes may look to them, yet view- 
ing quite enough for their own particular good and 
for ours — for us, who see altogether too much. 

And so we come to the weightiest of all matters 
for the Tenderfoot — the selection of competent 
advisers. For in the times of which I write the 
Farm Bureau and other like aids to ranchers had 
no existence. On the whole, however, practical ex- 
perience, intelligently applied, is hardly to be sur- 
passed in value. 

I was mercifully preserved from the loss and 
pain incurred by many newcomers to the Arid Belt, 
who are satisfied that they know it all. Farmer or 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 21 

no, the Tenderfoot has it all to learn. From the out- 
set of my ranching career I have cherished two 
quite inconspicuous virtues: first, I do know what 
I don't know, and thus protected hasten to sit at the 
feet of some accredited Gamaliel: second, I have 
cultivated the habit of close observation while ap- 
pearing to observe nothing. The individual whose 
agricultural belongings, animate and inanimate, are 
in sorry plight may talk ''all he has a mind to" with- 
out affecting me in the faintest degree. By his fruits 
do I know him — or her. For information, there- 
fore, I hied me to those who had made good in the 
departments wherein I needed counsel, and the 
empty chatter of the failures beat on my ears as the 
crackling of thorns under a pot. 

Some eager advisers remind me of a man I 
stumbled on not long since in a city garden. He 
was telling the lady of the garden how to tend her 
flowers and while thus engaged was permitting a 
full head of water from the hose to drown her 
delicate seedlings. So is it well to take note of the 
ranchman offering counsel, to mark well his ways 
and what manner of man he be. 

Some of the most helpful advice I ever received 
was given me by a woman who even in "bad years" 
never failed to make her ranch pay. She was too 
busily engaged in working to make it pay to join the 
"curb-warmers" on the street. 

For reasons, then, alleged earlier I stood calm and 
unafraid whilst, during the setting out of a peach 
orchard, a neighbor notoriously unsuccessful drew 
rein at my fence more than once for the purpose of 



22 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

assuring- me raucously that them peach trees wa'n't 
a-goin' to do no good in that there soil and that I'd 
best listen to advice. It happened that both the 
variety of peach and the corner of land had been 
selected for me by a money making orchardist, and 
that the two year old trees were being planted ac- 
cording to his directions, in large holes twenty-one 
or more feet apart to allow for the diameter of the 
twelve or eighteen feet often attained by three year 
old trees in the Valley. Two men held each tree 
while a third spread the roots, the hole being after- 
ward filled with fine soil. My neighbor looked on 
derisively, and when the orchard was set and in 
process of being irrigated, he shouted as he struck 
his horse with the quirt and loped upon his way — 

"All right ! Go ahead ! River's goin' dry this sum- 
mer, and you'll see what you will see in that there 
land!" 

What I saw was a thrifty orchard passing gal- 
lantly through a perilous season of drought and 
coming into bearing the following year. Other 
young orchards were wholly or in part lost, but mine 
flourished because the advice of an expert had been 
asked and taken. Constant cultivation was the 
preachment — dry farming, in short. 

After the retreat of one calamity howler another 
arrived to inform me that I should never, no never, 
find a market for a small orchard. Thanks to the 
ranchwoman before mentioned I did find a market, 
and a good one. 

So much for advice. Next in order comes the 
education of a weather eve. Nature makes mock 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 23 

daily of the dull and blind, and every locality hangs 
out signs of its own, for us to read or pass by as we 
will. Naturally there occur seasons when Nature 
flouts even the keenest observer, but not often. 

Certain Tenderfooters who land in our midst 
with more cash than sense, bragging that they will 
show the Valley farmers how to do things, may be 
dismissed with few words. Sooner or later they 
shake the dust of our rich Vale from feet which 
naturally enough have never lost their tenderness, 
swearing that farming in this section is No Good. 
Or else, merely wearying of an avocation for which 
they are unfitted, conduct themselves like children 
who abandon a toy as soon as it has lost its novelty. 
The good ranching person, even as the good phy- 
sician, must be born as well as made. 

And it is not just the backward look, the days 
that are no more look, that shows the hours of bless- 
ing to exceed in number, or at least equal, the hours 
of banning. 

Worry? Of course! Exasperation, poignant anx- 
iety? Assuredly. Nevertheless the born ranching 
person sticks until removed by ironhanded circum- 
stance. 

And after all ranching provocation arrives inter- 
mittently, owing its presence, in the era before the 
Dam, largely to the scuffle for water. The labor 
problem, needless to say, was comparatively easy of 
solution in those days before a brief period of war 
drained the labor supply. 



CHAPTER III 
THE RISE OF THE YEAR 

In New Mexico early in February the alfalfa 
is greening here and there, and is not quite so crack- 
ly under the feet. But it is still too crackly for 
Cortes. The pads of Chihuahua dogs are tender, 
and like the wise little old man he is he takes a seat 
on the edge of the irrigating ditch and watches me 
wistfully on my passage up the ranch. Jealousy 
also agitates his snowy shirt bosom because lazy 
Betsinda, ever on the lookout for indulgences, has 
approached me in her most engaging manner, with 
the result that I am carrying her. That Cortes con- 
siders such a performance absolutely despicable 
makes no difference in his feelings; or that never 
does he consent to being borne aloft unless when 
crossing a crowded street, and even at that he sighs 
woefully. Betsinda's manners are admired of all 
beholders, and it is she who attends to the social end 
of their existence — coquettishly, and assisted by 
the lavish use of large melting orbs, and always 
with that air of nerves-on-the-jump characteristic 
of the truebred Chihuahua. 

Despite a mitigating quality or two February can 
scarcely be called a softening month; in fact the 
Oldest Inhabitant believes it to be the most unplea- 
sant month of the New Mexican year. For the rheu- 
matically inclined it surely is. A chill damp breeze 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 25 

■from south or east frequently annoys, rain or snow 
drape the mountains and sometimes descend on the 
valleys. The typical winter of this section is dry 
and sunnv; or if not, why the presence of health- 
seekers and tourists? December may be cold 
enoug^h to freeze water in open vessels nights — 
outdoors, that is — and occasionally waterpipes. 
Nevertheless robust visitors from sterner climes 
lauo'h at well wrapped residents, and are inclined to 
parade in the sunshine without overcoats. Every 
travelled person, however, knows that to lay down 
the law about any climate is nothing but a tempting 
of the high gods, who disarrange weather schedules 
to suit themselves. Dare to make an assertion, and 
promptly the weather gods slap you in the face. 
February is the one exception: it is pretty safe to 
assert that it is shifty and unreliable. And the birds 
may be counted on. The yellow breasted, fat lark 
we have alwavs with us, whistling optimistically 
every day ; and now brilliant blue patches appear on 
bare bousrhs, on fence posts, or attached — bunches 
of them — to pump or faucet, and the full water pail 
is encircled with a sapphire ring; and anyone who 
ever notices anything exclaims: "The bluebirds 
are back! Soon we shall have Spring!" Glossy 
blackbirds too, handsome fellows flashing with 
scarlet or oranoe, swoop down upon the winter 
wheat, screaming about irrigation being delayed, 
and brown woodpeckers, also touched up with scar- 
let or orange, are quarrelsome and restless, and 
somewhat unintelligent, as it seems to a mere human 
person. Why, for instance, do they drum on the 



26 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

metal sides of the water tank, which of a surety can 
supply them with no meaty nourishment; or glare 
at each other from either side of a post of dressed 
lumber, which is also lacking in nourishing qualities, 
once in a while catching the other fellow a smack 
over the head, an assault returned with interest? 
But all these winged things are mere heralds of the 
gorgeous red and orange and amber gentlemen still 
on their way to us, and are on a par with tentative 
bulb fingers poking upward through the drab earth, 
with nascent buds on bushes and such wee signs 
and signatures of the uprising year. And just now 
the amateur gardener who defied prophecy and 
sowed his little patch of lettuce and radish in a 
sunny corner may reap his modest harvest and 
scoff at the wiseacres an' he will. For he sowed 
outdoors in the Fall, rashly dispensing with cold 
frames or other protection. 

The orchards too were cared for in the Fall — 
deep plowed, and now have just been pruned and 
harrowed, either already irrigated or about to be 
so. The previous Summer's abnormally heavy rains 
have brought wild grass into a corner of the alfalfa 
so I decide to fence instead of plowing and re- 
seeding the marred acre, so that later on the cows 
may be turned on it — cautiously, and for very brief 
periods. Jerseys running at large in green alfalfa 
are doomed to death, or escape but by a freak of 
fate. Scarcely a ranchman in the Valley has failed 
to lose purebred or graded cows from bloat, which, 
by-the-bye, is not to be confounded with colic. If 
Jerseys graze but a half hour on weedy or grassy 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 27 

alfalfa, access to water is forbidden for two hours 
thereafter, as also before; indeed opinion tends to 
the belief that it is the combination of water and 
green alfalfa which is fatal, especially in the case 
of Jerseys, whose stomachs are small and habits vor- 
acious. But the season of bloat is yet afar off, al- 
though the cows must be corralled because they have 
a mania for nibbling swelling peach buds. The 
horses, less mischievous, may enjoy their liberty 
awhile longer. 

As for plowing alfalfa — once a man has been 
driven to this task he will not hanker to repeat it; 
yet much of this heart and backbreaking labor was 
witnessed in days of war and wheat shortage, with 
tractors yet on the horizon. Alfalfa roots seem to 
penetrate to the centre of the earth, and there is a 
stand down in Mexico which is reported to be three 
hundred years old. The crop varies in merit ac- 
cording to location. Alfalfa from this Valley ranks 
higher than that of Colorado, for the reason that 
the latter is often "bastard" alfalfa; the Valley 
horses will not touch it, although we obtain our best 
seed from Colorado. 

Occasionally the resident is amused by some new- 
comer, professor or otherwise, who condescendinely 
informs him that alfalfa enriches the soil. He is a 
poor farmer who is ignorant of a fact so lacking in 
novelty. 

The burning subject of zvhen to begin irrigating 
this crop is already in our midst. The advantages 
of early irrigation are counterbalanced by the pos- 
sible setback of a late frost ; and night frosts, which 



28 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

have been experienced as late as the first of May, 
and which naturally are harder on the advanced 
than on the backward crop, read us annually the 
old story of the hare and the tortoise. For my part 
I took the advice of one who had made exceeding 
good with alfalfa, and curbed my impatience in re- 
gard to early irrigation. It may be added that the 
first is usually the best crop, as it should be ready to 
cut before the middle of May, thus avoiding the 
danger of Summer rains and the impairment by 
Summer weeds. 

But the darkening evening interrupts ranching 
meditations and I turn toward the lighted kitchen. 
Cortes, rather shivery but relieved, jumps as I 
reach what is to him dry land, and endeavors to 
bite Betsey's tail. Being somewhat bashful he 
would not venture on such a liberty were it not that 
the excitement of our safe return has gone to his 
head. She growls, and I put her down to adjust 
her own affairs, and away both little dogs frisk to 
the open door, Hilda, the big St. Bernard, gambol- 
ling cumberously after them and making believe to 
gobble them up. 

Spring, with its rapidly increasing cares, advanc- 
es rapidly — Spring, when the acequias brim with 
the brown and rushing flood, and the orchards flush 
with color on the wing and on the branch, and re- 
sound with song to match the dazzling plumage of 
the varied choir. The winter world casts off its 
mantle of drab and springs to greet the ever rising 
year. Yet Nature still uses her lightest touch, scat- 
tering emeralds upon the cottonwoods so warily 




u 

<; 

< 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 29 

that the rugged outhne of the Dona Ana mountains 
is hardly broken. 

But now too we have the winds to reckon with — 
the warm west winds which from time to time go 
bellowing through our midst. Through our midst 
is no mere old-fashioned figure of speech ; it is only 
too painfully accurate. Consolation, oft grievously 
needed, may be found in the knowledge that these 
Spring gales act as a purifier and disinfectant; 
further^, that while blowing when and where they 
list, the damage they effect is wholly out of pro- 
portion to their noise. Their velocity indeed does 
not in actual fact compare with that attained by 
gales in other sections of country, and blizzards, 
cyclones and northers are unknown. I have 
watched a winter norther romp and rage through 
my heavily weighted orange grove in Southern 
California for nearly a week at a time ; whereas our 
worst winds arrive before peach, apple and other 
orchards are mellow. My California kinsman com- 
ing in after a day's attention to my New Mexican 
ranch, remarks that a good shake disposes of 
Mesilla Valley dust but that California dust re- 
quires strenuous treatment — which by personal 
experience I know to be true. Now and then a 
lamb-like March and April blusters out into a rowdy 
May, and the May winds are of all the most unde- 
sirable, even though they are apt to stir things up 
in the east, from which quarter our rains may be 
looked for. 

But now at last the long Spring day draws to a 
close, and the wind has dropped exhausted over the 



30 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



Organs. Strewn from the western desert's wild 
wings across the unpaintable blue of the twilight 
sky stream rose-red pennants, tender yet resplend- 
ent — not the washed out hue of other sunset skies 
but the soul satisfying glory of color the desert sky 
alone can show. 

And then when morning dawns after one of these 
obnoxious winds, you look up to meet, as it were, 
the blue, innocent eye of a little child, quite igno- 
rant of having given offence. "What have I done 
that you should be angry with me?" a voice as in- 
nocent as the eye seems to say. What indeed! 
Nature is impenitent, but you forgive her, and go 
forth to inhale the clear-blown, life-giving atmos- 
phere without more words. 

With what completeness in these southern lands 
are soiled pages turned! One Christmas I was 
journeying across Louisiana after a season of piti- 
less rains. Most of the sugar cane was cut and lay 
sodden in the fields. In the dense woods trees stood 
knee deep in water, gray moss dripping from their 
branches. Palms thrust stiff green fingers upward, 
and from time to time, as we passed, a crimson 
fiower flashed at us. Rank and decaying vegetation 
crow'ded, and through it miserable cattle splashed. 
And then, suddenly, the train rumbled out from 
beneath the low clouds ; small towns appeared, front 
yards bloomed, people rocked serenely on porches, 
and the uncut cane glittered, a wide green plain, 
in the blaze of a westering sun. Then a bayou dis- 
played limpid waters, on the opal face of which 
steamboats and live oaks were reflected — bright 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 31 

similitude of peace. Here Nature seemed repentant 
of her outburst ; not so in New Mexico ! 

Spring is closing- her open book and it is early 
May when one Sunday we drive to a neighboring 
village — to find that in this more primeval settle- 
ment the world has stood still. The exact date of 
the (Mexican) settlement of Mesilla is uncertain, 
occurring probably in the first years of the nine- 
teenth century, but its era of prosperity did not set 
in until the Valley came into the possession of the 
United States by purchase in the fifties. An army 
post was established, and the dust of sleepy streets 
was stirred by the passing of mail and freight 
coaches and wagons. Its day of decadence dawned 
when it turned with loathing from the offer of a 
railroad. To this day the village remains much as 
it was, though shorn to some extent of its pictur- 
esqueness. 

As we tie the horses to a tree in the plaza, in 
front of the patched and timeworn church fat this 
later date too blatantly ''restored"), the entire com- 
munitv appears to be slumbering. Then unex- 
pectedly double doors are flung wide, color and 
radiance stream forth, and one of us cries — "O, for 
a oainter's brush!" Within is the patio indigenous 
to the life of both Mexicos. Above the environing 
walls burns the blue May sky. In the centre of the 
patio a locust tree waves its fresh, frail leaves and 
scented blossoms, scattering- shadows too over a 
mud-walled tank, from which spring spires of pink 
and crimson a9"ainst the soft and varied browns of 
the background. On the step beneath the archway 



32 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

sits a Vandyke brown child, the crimson of whose 
garment repeats the tints of the flowers behind her. 
The child runs out to embrace Cortes, who loathes 
Mexicans, particularly the young of the race — a 
loathing inherited from the ages, no doubt — so 
shows his gleaming teeth balef ully, and she retreats. 
A kodak is brought forth, but what is a mere kodak 
confronted with such a scene as this? And while 
we hesitate a smiling and portly Senora steps forth. 
Her in our best Mexican we salute, requesting per- 
mission to take a picture of her lovely patio and 
equally lovely muchackita. With alacrity she con- 
sents, re-arranges the child to less advantage, dives 
into the recesses of her dwelling, from whence she 
emerges with more flowers, but when asked to pose 
in the picture, genially but definitely declines. Soon 
we part, with mutual smiles and bows. 

On we drive, leaving the distinctly Mexican quar- 
ter but feeling more and more as if we were rolling 
through the gardens of a Sleeping Beauty. For 
the streets have become shadowy lanes, embowered 
in such a wealth of greenery as causes the stranger 
to rub his eyes and murmur : Is this indeed the Arid 
Belt ? Giant china trees shower perfume from their 
violet sprays, their dense shade illumined by the 
lighter and more dancing shadows of cottonwood 
and locust. On either side, screened by high hedges 
of osage orange, vine-covered trellises and balconies 
and orchards, we catch glimpses of the palaces 
themselves, some in partial decay yet glowing 
warmly brown or silvery white through their veils 
of green. Upon them poetic fancy had something 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSF 33 

whereon to feed, however absurdly, but where are 
they in these later days ? 

So as we went winding in those earlier days along 
silent by-ways, rounding corners which afforded 
peeps of azure mountains set in a framework of 
foliage, it was easy to forget that we were living 
in a wideawake world — that this old, old world, 
wrapped in enchanted slumber, was not ours for all 
time. 

Idle dreams, in truth, and to them succeeded, in 
swift and due course, the practical. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE RIO BRAVO, IRRIGATION AND CROPS 

Once it was my good fortune to stand close 
beside the River when it was starting- out on one of 
its rampages. A neighbor had business concerned 
with a hosque, one of many bordering our ca- 
pricious stream, and suggested that I should ac- 
company him on the long drive, and see for myself 
what " was doing." By the time we reached our 
destination the growling of many waters was plain- 
ly audible and the horse's feet already making 
splashy noises. However, the river bank rose safe- 
ly upward, and on this he left me while he proceeded 
to transact his business. My part was to unpack 
the lunch, but the fascination of the scene was too 
great for such trivialities. 

This at last was the Rio Grande, the Rio Bravo; 
no longer a lick and a promise but a full flood, dark 
and angry, muttering, roaring even in places — hur- 
rying, hurrying, with a threat in its voice and in the 
shifting quicksands over which it rolled. Already 
its swirling eddies were eating into the bank on 
which I stood, and a little higher up a tree fell with 
a crash, either undermined, or cut down by shouting 
men engaged in strengthening the river's boun- 
daries. The wind sang gaily in the swaying cotton- 
woods overhead, their young children swinging 
tender branches in the brown flood. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 35 

And it was well that I had ignored the lunch, for 
the buggy came squelching and rocking back 
through water now knee deep, and I was enjoined 
to throw the lunch basket ahead of me and speed 
down the bank, as it was only regaining the buggy 
with the aid of a strong arm and a strong branch. 
Two or three days after this delightful little adven- 
ture I had occasion to go to the city, but taking wise 
advice returned that same night, the train sometimes 
crawling through water so deep that the crew sound- 
ed it with long poles. And that was the last through 
train for many, many days. 

The Indians had one resource when the fickle 
stream played tricks on them — a resource which has 
somehow failed us of a later generation. For them 
no sitting down in resignation, no folding of the 
hands to sleep, but they uprose as one man, and hav- 
ing slain a young virgin to propitiate the god of 
waters confidently awaited results. At this point 
history provokingly stops short, leaving the rest to 
our imagination. Yet to this day in some portions 
of New Mexico and Arizona Mexicans carry the 
image of San Ysidro, the agricultural saint, to bless 
their crops, but though the firing of guns, inevitable 
concomitant of all exciting events, is scrupulously 
observed, and only water is drunk, except possibly a 
light corn wine, we hear of no particularly striking 
reform on the part of our old river. A whole day 
is (or not long since was) given up in the Mesilla 
Valley to invoking and blessing the slippery Rio 
Grande, who is liable to give his reverent worship- 
pers the go-by just the same. 



36 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

The American resorts to what, on the whole, are 
more practical measures. On the high lands and 
mesas where rainfall is more assured than in the 
valleys he takes to dry-farming, which is really only 
intense cultivation, such as I was taught to practise 
in the case of the young peach orchard mentioned 
in an earlier chapter. Moreover in the high lands 
gramma grass flourishes, and makes a better winter 
feed for grazing stock. 

But on this rare June morning the Rio Grande is 
conducting itself with decorum — or at least I pre- 
fer to think it is as I step forth at nearly seven of 
the clock. Breakfast is fizzling on the range, the 
aroma of Java and Mocha floating through open 
doors and windows. The flock of ebony hens, lately 
released and heralded by a gay chanticleer, scarlet 
combs glowing in the sunshine, are grazing in the 
alfalfa, crooning their satisfaction. The cows in the 
corral chew the cud of bovine ease. Up and down 
the drive, round and round in the meadows, kicking 
up her heels in the joy of living, races a blooded 
colt, the hope of the ranchwoman to whom the plug 
of the Far West is the abomination of desolation. 
Meanwhile the mother tugs at her rope in all the 
futility of maternal anxiety. 

Equally anxious, though from a different cause, 
I stand at the kitchen door, shading my eyes from 
the blinding radiance without. 

"Juan, have we got the water?" 

'Si, Sefiora!" cheerfully. 

"Good ! Now hold on to i't !" 

"Muy hien, Sefiora!" 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 37 

And the bare brown legs, big sombrero and clum- 
sy hoe disappear among the peach trees. If there 
is any more entrancing sound than the hissing of 
water into cracked and thirsty land, a more refresh- 
ing sight than that of the murky torrent spreading 
cool fingers over the face of heated meadow and 
orchard, the ranchwoman is not acquainted with 
either. 

And beautiful indeed upon the mountains as the 
feet of those bringing glad tidings is early morn in 
New Mexico. Each day is a new birth, a new 
heaven and a new earth. When dawn steals along 
the Valley and morning leaps in glory on the por- 
phyry peaks, the heart leaps with it; for the new 
day is ours — not to do with it what we will, perhaps, 
but to do with it the best we can. The night may 
have been one of dread and watching and the hours 
to come burdened with tasks, but never can those 
tasks become sordid to the nature lover. The "glory 
of the dream" is reborn, day after day, even though 
it be sullied in an hour. . . . 

There are some arts of which a man becomes 
master in the course of three hundred years or so. 
Levelling land is one, irrigation is another. In both 
these arts the Mexican is at his best. Not that the 
progressive American fails to get ahead of him at 
times, even in his own game, but the progressive 
farmer is not yet as plentiful in our Valley as the 
eastern blackberry upon the wayside bush ; there- 
fore the Mexican, with his big hoe and inherited 
lore, continues to be a valuable person. 



38 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

Land to be irrig-ated must present an absolutely 
flat surface. Alfalfa will not thrive in water-logged 
soil. Now comes in our friend Juan or Jesus, who 
with plow and scraper reduces the land to a uniform 
level. Then he blocks it out in squares until the 
whole afifair looks like a gigantic chessboard. The 
sides of each square are heaped sufficiently high to 
retain the water for thorough saturation of the soil. 
As soon as one square is soaked a hole is made in 
the "border" with the ubiquitous hoe, and the stream 
Sfushes forth into the next square, and so on. This 
is irrigating after the Mexican manner, and even if 
some American farmer prefers a more elaborate 
method, it comes to much the same thing in the end. 
Nevertheless, the American who makes his ir- 
rigating ditches deeper and wider and his borders 
higher is the man who gets ahead. 

Many Americans irrigate before sowing and not 
again until the crop is well above ground. Personally 
I have had indifferent success with this plan, and so 
have done as the natives do. The Mexican sows 
his seed before repairing to the Community acequia, 
or ditch. He raises the water gate, and lets the wa- 
ter flow into the private ditches of the ranch, and 
then following up with his hoe, proceeds as here- 
tofore described. This is the simple yet effectual 
flooding system. It seems as if the fine seed of the 
alfalfa, sown near the surface and only brushed 
over and not harrowed into the ground, must in- 
evitably be swept away and drowned, but somehow 
or other it survives, and soon greets our eyes with 
a brave show of green. It is usually sown here in 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 39 

March or April and with a nurse crop of wheat, 
oats or barley, for the double purpose of keeping 
the weeds down and sheltering the young alfalfa 
from the burning rays of the sun. This method 
bears reason on its face. The crop is ready for its 
first cutting by the time the nurse crop is high 
enough to be cut for fodder. 

A prettier spectacle than a meadow of well 
established alfalfa ripe for the harvest, rippling like 
a purple sea before a gentle breeze, it would be dif- 
ficult to picture, even for the man who cares nothing 
for farming. The first cutting of such an estab- 
lished crop occurs early in May, and at intervals 
from six to seven weeks during the season. 

In nutritive and muscle forming qualities alfalfa 
has no equal. Work horses fed alfalfa only keep 
in fine shape and spirit, always provided that they 
are fed enough and given sufficient time in which 
to eat it. It is the owner and not alfalfa who must 
be blamed for his bony steed. This assertion has 
been proved correct by years of actual experience. 
Cows fed alfalfa hay, supplemented in winter by a 
nightly ration of bran, produce butter unsurpassed 
both in quality and quantity. On some fourteen 
acres a few head of stock can graze from November 
to March, thus eking out the baled hay. But alfalfa 
will not endure too close grazing or any other in^ 
tensive ill treatment ; it must be watched and cared 
for, whilst yet remaining ''the lazy man's crop." 
Hogs and chickens graze it also, and with little 
additional food during the growing season are 
remunerative to their owners. Two hundred and 



40 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

fifty hogs throve and grew fat spending the spring 
and summer months on a two and a half acre alfalfa 
pasture, and ten hogs turned into a one acre pas- 
ture for eight months had increased seventy-five 
pounds per head at the end of six months. Of 
course movable fences were used to permit of 
thorough irrigation. Into the more up-to-date 
methods of fattening hogs I do not propose to enter, 
my own experience not having been in that line, but 
I do know that it is quite common for sows in this 
climate to raise two litters per annum. 

The flooding system already described is em- 
ployed in the cultivation of the majority of crops — 
for wheat, corn, certain varieties of vegetables, and 
usually speaking, for orchards. But should the pro- 
gressive farmer flood his orchard in warm weather 
he will protect the trunks of his trees from contact 
with the water, thus avoiding what is termed sun- 
scald. 

The furrow system of irrigation is theoretically 
the superior of the flooding system, but when put to 
the test in the case of orchards does not necessarily 
prove infallible. The reason for its occasional fail- 
ure is not obvious, for its advantages would appear 
to be unanswerable and in other localities stands the 
test of trial, not only for vegetables and such crops 
as canteloupes and the like, but also for orchards. 
In the latter case the farmer plows deep furrows on 
either side each row of trees, and into these ditches 
runs the water instead of spreading it broadcast. 
Thus the growth of rank weeds is discouraged, every 
drop of moisture is utilized, seeping slowly down 




s 



o 

Q 
< 

< 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 41 

to the trees' roots, and there is no possibitity of sun- 
scald. One thorough plowing during the season is 
sufficient, a harrow of any up-to-date make keeping 
the land in fine tilth. Nevertheless some orchard- 
ists have abandoned an apparently rational system 
and have fallen back on ancient ways. For this 
there must be some good reason; although it must 
be repeated that peach orchards, with which I have 
had the most intensive experience, are no longer 
what they were in number or perfection, and pear 
orchards have to a large extent taken their place. 

The necessity of breaking up the soil in some 
manner after each irrigation and keeping the or- 
chard land like a seed bed is still not universally ap- 
preciated. When the time arrives for cultivating 
the careless orchardist floods again. The funda- 
mental cause of too much loose farming with us is — 
or perhaps I may soon have to say was — the almost 
unparalleled fertility of the soil in combination 
with a beneficent climate. The newcomer's idea is — 
or was — as often as not that lounging on his porch 
and ordering his peon around comprises all that is 
necessary to his farming salvation. He beholds 
luxuriant crops and orchards laden with fruit, and 
believes he can enjoy the like blessings minus 
thought and toil. Just there he falls down hard, 
to employ the vernacular. For centuries this kind 
corner of the earth has rewarded man far beyond 
his just deserts, but now he must awake from sloth. 
And after all, and at its worst, ranching in Southern 
New Mexico is not so arduous as in the east ; hours 
are comparatively short, and climatic rigors prac- 



42 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

tically unknown, or such as they are would scarcely 
count as such in the estimation of the eastern farm- 
er. It may be supposed that even in prehistoric days 
there existed ranchers of sorts — those who made 
good in their business, and those who branded it 
with a big "N. G." 

The ''tw^o-story" method of farming has long 
been practised in this Valley, though written up in 
later years as something entirely novel. Wherever 
the soil is sufficiently rich to carry two crops or 
more in one season such a method is good, the sole 
objection being that when practised in an orchard 
it interferes with the thorough cultivation absolute- 
ly necessary to the production of first class fruit. In 
a young orchard, however, corn is beneficial, for 
not only must corn itself be cultivated but as it 
grows it affords shade. 

The Valley soil is composed of adobe (clay) and 
sandy loam, in alternation or blended; and where 
sand occurs it is either what the Mexicans call ''good 
sand" or could be irrigated into fertility. Alkali, 
found in my ranching days only in spots, was some- 
times the reverse of harmful wdien well mixed by 
deep cultivation, or it could be eliminated by repeat- 
ed irrigations. In those days, too, it was quite pos- 
sible to find land too rich and heavy for fruit trees. 
Fertilisers were then not merely unnecessary but 
actually harmful, and the Egyptian Plague of 
wormy beasts is put down by some to the present 
use of barnyard manure. Every reform has its 
initiatory drawbacks, and "the beautiful clear wa- 
ter," of which the Reclamation Service is so proud, 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 43 

may be accounted one of them, as will be seen by 
the analysis here presented of the once muddy wa- 
ters of the Rio Grande: 

Phosphate Acid 0.14 per cent 

Potash 1. 2 1 per cent 

Nitrogen 0.13 per cent 

Could fertilising properties furnished gratis further 
go? The costly drawbacks accompanying the Re- 
clamation Project, however, form subjects for so 
many animated arguments that I prefer to steer 
away from rather than into them. 

And always must there be water. Any ranching 
person who has striven with the exasperating an- 
cient methods of obtaining this life giving necessity 
could not do otherwise than welcome law and order 
as administered under the present regime, even with 
its drawbacks. Yes — even if he has to watch the 
beloved and mysterious acequias stripped bare by 
the ruthless hand of Progress; to behold the tall 
canes and cottonwoods, threaded by whispering, 
meandering paths, laid low ; to be able to follow no 
longer those secretive ways within sight and sound 
of brown and swirling waters and indulge in weird 
jungle dreams — even so, he must perforce submit; 
and after all is said, and thought, he is in the small 
minority, that very small minority which would do 
better to harbor no tastes but the material. For 
that which represents to the artistic eye ruin and 
despair, is to the eye of the practical ranchman Im- 
provement writ large. 

In former days the law of the acequia was a by- 
word in the market place — not, let me hasten to add. 



44 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

that it is by any means certain that the average white 
man acting as majordomo would have shown him- 
self less corrupt or corruptible. The system itself 
was to blame, and the worst enemy of the old-time 
nuijordomo was forced to acknowledge that his was 
a position difficult indeed to fill to the satisfaction of 
all concerned. But the lone woman lost nothing — 
as she loses nothing — by keeping on good terms 
W'ith Mexicans, official or otherwise; for on the 
whole they must be credited with more chivalry or 
good nature, or both, than the white man. Above 
all was it necessary for the ranchwoman whose land 
was watered by means of a contra acequia, or cross 
ditch, to be well considered by her neighbors; for 
it was so attractively simple for said neighbors to 
steal the water on its way from the main acequia, 
and thus a w^hole day might be wasted in walking 
to and fro and expostulating with a variety of empty 
words. Of course the neighbors could be terror- 
ized, but that proceeding had its drawbacks. Should 
peaceful means fail, however, which was rarely the 
case, the reward of being on pleasant terms with 
the majordomo then materialized. In short, though 
past days were sometimes troublous, they seldom 
lacked a certain humorous aspect. As for the "bad 
years," when the river w^ent dry for any length of 
time, they were few; and in fourteen years my 
ranching journal notes but one season in which 
only two cuttings of alfalfa were harvested. 

To return to the subject of peach orchards: 
phenomenal is the Spring that comes round without 
the accompanying wail that "the Valley fruit has 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 45 

g-one up!" One learn through the passing of many 
Springs to rest undisturbed by such outcries; and 
presently even the most hysterical compose them- 
selves and find that in at least seven or eight cases 
out of ten no harm has been done. Here and there 
one lights on a newcomer who turns a deaf ear to 
calamity howlers and having raised a peach orchard 
waxes eloquent in praise of the unusually fine 
flavor, size and beauty of the Mesilla Valley peach. 
And well he may; for though apple and pear or- 
chards are fruitful and remunerative, they come 
into bearing later than the peach, and lack also the 
distinctive traits of the Valley peach which won 
laurels for itself all over the West, even to bearing 
home the Gold Medal from the Chicago World's 
Fair. But with the passing of the great orchard- 
ists passed also the fame of the Valley peach ; sel- 
dom is it to be seen now in its old time perfection. 
When I arrived in the Mesilla Valley there ex- 
isted several noteworthy orchards of this fruit, one 
in particular beinga"show"place,withshadeddrives 
for the enjoyment of strangers within its gates. 
There are no such places now. One orchard I visit- 
ed contained about one hundred acres, and shipped 
from eighteen to thirty-five carloads of fancy fruit 
per season to eastern markets. The thinning of this 
typical orchard had provided employment for some 
forty or more men, and the pruning was also an ex- 
tensive affair. One heard of trees in bearing when 
a quarter of a century old. and I myself have seen 
twelve year old trees cut down to the fork, renew 
their youth and with it their productiveness. Soil 



46 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

and climate specially favor the peach, both as to 
fruitfulness and long life. Despite up-to-date ter- 
ror of late frosts never but once in my ranching 
years did I have to resort to buying imported 
peaches. After sampling them one after the other 
on my homeward road all were finally consigned to 
the wayside dust. Thus easily are w^e spoiled by 
the ''gilt-edged" things of life! 

Fruit drying has been tried in a small way with 
success; as why should it not be successful in a 
climate so pre-eminently adapted to drying by natu- 
ral means ? Everything exposed to the sun and air 
desiccates rather than decays. A gay plumaged 
bird shot and lost was found weeks later in a perfect 
state of preservation, and carcases of dead animals 
permitted to adorn our highways turn at once into 
innocuous mummies. 

All vegetables grown in the Valley are well fla- 
vored, whether due to altitude, climate or soil can- 
not be told. The crisp melt-in-the-mouth celery 
makes a person look with disgust on the tough, 
stringy shipped-in stuff. But expert gardeners are 
not evolved in a dav, and unfortunatelv celerv grow- 
ers are all too few in the Valley. Canteloupes, cab- 
bages, onions and tomatoes all thrive. The report 
for 19 1 8 shows a yield to canteloupe growers of 
between $125,000 and $150,000. Fifty acres of 
cabbage sold for more than $20,000. But statistics 
are dull reading, and figures uninteresting to all 
but farmers. It is well to add, nevertheless, that 
citrus fruits are not included in the Valley reper- 
toire, eastern pamphlets, together with east- 




a 

Q 
O 
O 
J 

< 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 47 



ern doctors who send healthseekers to shiver in 
our Valley without winter clothing, to the contrary 
notwithstanding. Further, in selecting his crop the 
prospective ranchman must take into account the 
amount of labor required for the crop of his choice, 
the ready cash he possesses to pay the rising cost 
of labor, taxes and so forth. Many do not pause to 
consider ways and means but hurry joyously to 
paper profits — 'futures, that is. In talking with a 
highly successful ranchman recently I was interest- 
ed to learn that he viewed cotton as the coming ban- 
ner crop of this section ; not having a head for fig- 
ures unless promptly written down I will not pre- 
sume to specify the number of bales he raised to 
the acre. There is ample proof that in ancient 
times Indian races were successful with cotton, but 
this crop is only now making a fresh start in both 
Valleys. My informant pleased me by rating my 
favorite alfalfa next in order to cotton as a money- 
maker, although as already told it will not stand 
arrant neglect. ' It needs comparatively slight labor 
or care, is not pestered with modern bugs of sorts, 
is easy to market and so forth. And in these days 
of water abundance let not the humble berry be 
overlooked. Strawberries have always been ex- 
ceptionally fine and well flavored and were I now 
in the farming business a large slice of land would 
be given up to berry culture of every description. 
Our neighboring Texan city has been slow to show 
hospitality to Upper Valley products as every house- 
keeper in that city knows, compelled as she too 
often is to supply her household with unripe or half 



48 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

rotted fruit from California or elsewhere. If it be 
true that our city is undergoing- a slight change of 
heart, it is full time that she did. 

To go backward once more: driving one after- 
noon across a strip of unreclaimed land I came un- 
expectedly upon a wheat field. There had been 
phenomenally early thunder showers, for it was yet 
June, and the air held a dewy softness character- 
istic only of the rainy season with us. Clouds w^ere 
trailing giant shadows over the bright rainwashed 
face of the mountains, and the varying greens from 
emerald to bronze, the play of light and shade w'hich 
renders the Arid Belt so enchanting yet so exas- 
perating to the brush artist, made a picture unsur- 
passed in rural loveliness. The eastern mesa wore its 
gentlest, most emotional aspect. I use the w^ord emo- 
tional for the reason that nearer the Coast moun- 
tain and valley, especially in summer time, strike the 
artist eye as stupidly unemotional in their dull, un- 
varyingly olive green habiliments, in comparison 
with the astonishing effects produced here by roll- 
ing summer clouds, or bv the wind clouds 
of spring. This afternoon the red domes of 
the Catholic church shone richlv throug^h the 
bowser of greenery in which the town nestles, 
and the foreground was consummately effected 
by the ruddy patch of wheat and stubble, 
stooping figures of Mexicans, a man in blue over- 
alls and jumper erect against a harmonious sky. 
Some of the belated harvest had been reaped, but 
there w^ere no shocks. Instead the crop was being 
gathered in handsfull and armsfull from the 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE j^ 

ground, or the wheat heads were chopped off the 
standing- straw, and in such manner carried in dolls' 
bundles to a rickety wagon. The reaping, if so it 
could be called, was done with miniature reaping 
hooks dating from bygone ages. All futile and in- 
adequate, of course, but from the artistic viewpoint 
not to be improved upon. 

I chanced to be on my way to visit an expert 
North Western wheatgrower, not long established 
in the Valley. His harvest was already gathered, 
but he scorned the idea of having lost an hour's sleep 
in "water worry" ! His forty bushels to the acre 
were raised because he had plowed and sown deep 
instead of scratching the soil and scattering the 
seed broadcast. Thus the abundant spring irriga- 
tions went in and stayed in. Now he was preparing 
the same acreage for corn, a double crop working 
no injury to such rich land. Corn is a more trouble- 
some and thirsty crop than wheat, but succeeds well 
in the Valley. As for wheat, though yielding profit- 
ably under good cultivation, I have heard farmers, 
whose triumphs entitle them to a respectful hearing, 
maintain that wheat will never bring fortune in its 
train in the Rio Grande Valley, because the climate 
is neither cold nor damp enough. 

My neighbor, the wheatgrower of that date, is 
the father of two rosy little girls, constant visitors 
to my ranch, either bent on raking my hay with 
horses broken by themselves, or aiming for social 
pleasures only. They do all the household work at 
home, occasionally aided by their busy father, and 
with joy apply themselves to outdoor duties as well. 



50 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

At a pinch they have flown to my rescue, spending 
nights with me, and cooking such breakfasts as lead- 
ers of the simple life are more than glad to praise. 
Followed by their piping farewells, and after Bet- 
sinda has been kissed to repletion, I start for home. 

The sun has set, yet earth, air and sky are lumin- 
ous with a quality which is not radiance but rather 
its ethereal counterpart. The mountains, unlit, 
thrust silvered shafts out of the violet gray of can- 
ons, themselves as indefinite yet distinct as half 
remembered dreams. The straw of the shorn wheat 
fields lie like lakes of unclouded amber set in the 
twilight of alfalfa meadows. Gold there is none. 
Amber is everywhere, lustrous, pervasive, faintly 
tinting the very backs of the sheep, as with bleats 
of remonstrance they tread the circle of the thresh- 
ing ground — laid out almost in the centre of the 
highway — and lighting the sheaves beneath their 
feet. Behind the circling flock walks a young boy 
clad in sober blue, his straw sombrero pushed back 
upon his dusky head, the seriousness of responsi- 
bility in his agate eyes, and over his shoulder an 
emerald cottonwood branch, borne as the boys of 
Holy Writ bore their branches of palm. The weird 
cry, wailing across wide reaching lands as the la- 
ment of some abandoned soul, quivers on its sus- 
tained note, then drops, as the men outside the circle 
raise or lower their arms. Into the land of the 
Northern Mystery my mind unbidden drifts — into 
centuries dead and gone. 

Driving onward I find threshing at an end, and 
in the light breeze fanning earthward men toss the 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 51 

wheat over their heads, thus letting Nature do their 
winnowing". Later, in the Fall days, women may yet 
be found, grinding the corn between the upper and 
the nether millstone. 

But all these things pass away, all relics of the 
past primeval. 

Nearing home I come to a flat roofed town in 
miniature, a bee-town. Lucrative as such settle- 
ments are to their ow^ners. fifty pounds of comb 
honey per hive being considered a moderate esti- 
mate and ambrosial as is the Valley honey, I prefer 
not to engage in this industry. I do not like bees, 
and, far more important, they do not like me. At 
one time I gave them credit for being at least hard- 
working, but I have learned that in New Mexico 
they are sometimes disgracefully lazy and have to 
be urged into doing business. The bee is due to 
work for from three to five months in the year here, 
but does not always live up to his schedule. 

So doth the little busy bee. 

Furthermore, owing to the smaller acreage of 
alfalfa sown in later years this nominally industri- 
ous insect has to be fed more plentifully than of old, 
and sugar is no longer a cheap commodity. Ergo, 
honey is no longer cheap. 

And now the long respected bee is accused of 
spreading pear blight. Clearly the vogue of the 
Bee is passing. 



CHAPTER V 
SUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS 

Sunday Morning. My first cutting of alf- 
alfa is safely out of the way and the irrigation of 
the shorn fields is completed, and for the passing 
hour I am at peace with the whole world. It is only 
right, mete and proper that I should be in this 
beatific state of mind, for the early hours have been 
most unsabbathically employed. 

Juan was irrigating all night, and when at the 
Sunday hour of eight or thereabouts I stepped forth 
arrayed in whitest white with the ultimate intention 
of attending church, I was confronted with a 
spectacle which caused me to snatch my hoe from 
the porch and hurl myself into a singlehanded strug- 
gle with waters all too swift and strong. Far up the 
ranch Juan was still racing back and forth, but 
around the house one of the ditches had broken, the 
drive was submerged and the insidious wave was 
threatening my mud mansion. Sunday and snowy 
raiment immediately became things of naught, and 
for two mortal hours, the sun grinning ever wider 
and wider overhead, I strove with weeds, lumps of 
clay and finally gunny sacks ere I succeeded in stop- 
ping the perilous leak. When Juan appeared an- 
nouncing the completion of his task he stared open- 
mouthed at the Senora, bedaubed as she was with 
symbols of victory. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 53 

"Why did you not call me, Senora?" Then be- 
thinking himself he shrugged his shoulders and 
spread his hands. "The Sefiora did well not to 
wait," he conceded. 

Thus at last I am as free from ranching agita- 
tions as the little dogs reclining in the garden — re- 
clining, but not "relaxed" according to modern 
instructions. It is worthy of observation that they 
have disposed their small persons at a discreet dis- 
tance from a lilac bush already pre-empted by but- 
cher-birds for purposes of their own. Not only 
are they butchers but warriors of the most aggress- 
ive type, and should any dog, large or small, stroll 
carelessly within six feet of their nest, out they 
dash, and in the parlance of the country give that 
dog fits. Howls and groans, deep or shrill, proclaim 
that a sharp bill has penetrated some canine back. 
Beautiful and bloodthirsty, these winged monsters 
leave a trail of death all through the orchards, in 
the shape of insects impaled on twigs and left there 
to die. Murder, bloody murder, is the slogan of 
the butcher-bird. A canary hung outdoors in its 
cage is doomed. By some unknown means the gay 
plumaged terror entices the canary close to the 
bars, and then off goes its head. But as I do not 
keep canaries I am spared one form of worry. 

Scarcely had I got myself into a clean frock than 
Mrs. X. called by to engage a pint of Jersey cream 
for her bridge party the following afternoon, and 
incidentally to tell me of a night spent in a house of 
mourning. She is now on her way home, and con- 
cludes her recital by saying that she intends to take 



54 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

a long nap. She is one of the best of women, Mrs. 
X., at the same time I am led to speculate whether 
her type — for she represents a type — is not curious- 
ly insensitive? This probably heretical surmise 
persists. The benevolent ministrations of such 
women leave them unperturbed, appetite and ca- 
pacity for sleep normal. It has been my lot to have 
been mixed up with horror, grief and tragedy — not 
constantly after the manner of my kind neighbor, 
but often enough, God wot. Such experiences do 
not slide so easily into the limbo of forgetfulness 
but abide to haunt one's dreams, torture one's wak- 
ing hours, urge one to fretting, and often vain, en- 
deavor to mitigate cruel circumstance. Of all 
forms of suffering vicarious suffering presents it- 
self to me as the least endurable. With kind, use- 
ful Mrs. X. the case is otherwise. 

"Of course you won't come to my bridge party?" 
she observes as she lifts the reins. "You are ab- 
solutely impossible !" 

"Incompetence like mine is impossible !" I retort. 
"Instead of spoiling a pleasant game I am better 
employed in putting my chickens to bed and dispos- 
ing of the evening's milk." 

She departs with a neighborly sniff', quite un- 
convinced, and I am abandoned to my reading, or 
what I believe to be reading. As a matter of fact 
I am soon gazing idly out of the eastern window of 
my big, cool den. Who would not, given the same 
outlook ? 

The roses that have run riot in my garden for 
weeks all too brief are now over, the midsummer 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 55 

ones still dormant in their green sheaths. Spring 
has folded her bright wings; but white and crim- 
son hollyhocks rise proudly against the silvery blue 
of peaks yet shining with the — entirely mythical — 
dews of morn. Cottonwoods fresh with promise of 
eternal youth frame the picture, already flinging, 
with refreshing untidiness, their snowy feathers up 
into the azure sky or down upon my garden paths. 
What of it? Sordid and Martha-like is that spirit 
which cumbers itself with such trifles as the dis- 
orderly habits of summer snows, or fusses about 
summer heat or winter cold when sheltered from 
both by a spacious, high-ceilinged adobe house — 
built, too, not only on one floor but by those who 
knew how to build. There are adobes and adobes, 
of course. The bricks are fashioned of mud and 
straw, run into a mould and then laid out in the sun 
to dry. Mine is a real old-timey adobe mansion. Let 
those who worship the little tin god called STYLE 
roast or freeze in lesser houses of frame or brick, 
and suffer and be still. If they prefer a row of 
west windows, too, letting in the roystering wind 
of Spring and the burning sun of Summer, that al- 
so is their choice; and few realize, indeed, that with 
us a southern or eastern exposure is the best, the 
cool breezes coming from one of those quarters. As 
a tenderfoot I was once sceptical, but learned my 
lesson very soon. Some never learn, nor even know 
from which direction the wild winds or gentle 
zephyrs blow. 

The well built adobe house, then, is an adobe for 
the very gods — until maybe the rains come along 



56 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

about the last of June, or later, and trickles of mud- 
dy water find their way through the flat roof and 
splash upon the noses of workers enjoying well 
earned slumbers. But abuse and violence can be 
forever quelled by the simple expedient of planting 
on the Mexican roof an American roof, and paint- 
ing the same a rich crimson. Thus may one be simul- 
taneously American and picturesque — a feat not to 
be sneered at. 

None of our seasons come so much amiss to those 
who seek the deepest Heart of Things, and live in 
closest fellowship with Nature's moods and note her 
changing face and listen for her faintest whisper, 
but it is in winter that the healthseeker visits our 
sunbathed land. Winter is our trump card, then? 
Granted. But give me the early summer too, when 
my brown house veils itself, day by day, in flowers 
and greenery, sinking lower and lower into the arms 
of Cottonwood, locust and umbrella trees, and the 
drone of bees and perpetual cooing of wild doves 
wakes memories of far off lands; when the June 
orchards thrust fruit all aglow into hands ready for 
the gathering, and the mocking birds, noisy rascals, 
shout night and day; and the ultramarine of the 
sky takes on a paler, tenderer hue, into which a^/J 
bath as the heat wave surges along the Valley the 
mountains plunge their phantom spires, retiring 
further and further into the land of dreams. Then 
it is that, noontide drawing near, the olive mesa 
decks itself transiently in ribbons of gold and black 
as the summer clouds roll across high heaven — fore- 
runners of a rainy season yet to come — leaving in 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 57 

their passing swift fading afterthoughts on those 
mountains' rockbound sides. 

And morning after morning, under the climbing 
sun, and evening after evening when the moon 
swims up from behind the lonely peaks or the stars 
creep out solitary, a breeze like the cool foam "of 
perilous seas" in some "fairyland forlorn" scatters 
its vivifying drops upon the heated face of the 
Valley, and w-e breathe the veritable breath of life 
as those who abide at sea-level never can do. Ours 
is the dewless Arid Belt indeed, but ours too is the 
keen, pure air of untrodden desert and mountain. 

It is the habit of the prosperous to declare that 
everything has its compensations, and for once it 
must be allowed that the prosperous are right, 
thoup-h prating after their manner of that of which 
they know nothing. 

There is little neighborliness in Nature here, 
nevertheless. Even at her fairest she retains her 
remoteness, her indifference. Yet somehow we 
feel that it is here, just here, that she, in spite of her- 
self enters into our heart of hearts. She who would 
not appeal has appealed. In her often wild and al- 
ways solemn beauty she is the embodiment of all the 
sorrows of the world. We turn from her in vain ; 
it is but to look and look again. 

Much is bruited around concernino- the "terrific 
heat" of our Valley. At once, without fear or 
favor luit with ample opportunities for comparison 
at my command, I brand such yarns as arrant non- 
sense. Women, proverbially inaccurate and unob- 
servant where Nature's manners and customs form 



58 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

the basis of discussion, are prominent among the 
yarners. 

"Would I were back with you !" writes one health- 
seeker of the male sex, healthseekers being wont to 
flee from us the moment Summer shows her glow- 
ing face — "You in New Mexico are fortunate in be- 
ing spared our eastern "heated spell." Why did I 
grumble and complain and ignominously take flight? 
Woe is me !" 

Did we of the Arid Belt possess but one tithe of 
the boosting capacity exhibited by our Californian 
neighbors, or rather possessed the million or so to 
spend annually on a big Boost, such stuff as is used 
against us would never reach a human ear or eye. 

"Isn't this a beautiful morning!" ejaculates your 
Californian as he passes you, sitting shuddering in 
wraps and praying the laggard sun to pierce the 
clammy fog. 

If you are a moral coward, as most of us feel we 
have to be in California, you take up the joyous cry 
and pass it on. If you still retain some modicum 
of self respect, or bear in mind that back in New 
Mexico speech concerning the weather is very free 
indeed and we abuse it when so disposed, you stand 
pat ; or you retort that you love fogs — some people 
do — or possibly venture timid disapproval and are 
promptly squelched. 

For we of the Arid Belt — in which, by-the-bye, 
the Government establishes its health and rest re- 
sorts — are the champion grumblers of the United 
States. The more calculating Californian keeps 
his troubles to himself, or at least out of the news- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 59 

papers, whereas we at every climatic mishap burst 
hysterically into print, and see to it that our moans 
resound through the halls of civilization. Naturally 
our climate has its drawbacks and will continue to 
have until Paradise opens its doors, but to the ex- 
perienced traveler — or rather to the observant trav- 
eler, the latter being- in the minority — it has not a 
rival here below; or not, that is, in these United 
States. 

There are many portions of this vast country 
which should be shunned by those yearning for the 
dubious joys of fires and blankets in summertime, 
as there are many persons mentally and physically 
unfitted for warm and sunlit days. Mentally, be- 
cause they fuss and fret and fume themselves into a 
semi-boiling condition long ere the heated term ar- 
rives, for the reason that it should have arrived; 
physically, because they consult an unreliable ther- 
mometer every few minutes and if it reads 90 in- 
stead of the desired 80, groan and fan and borrow 
trouble generally, 80 as a matter of fact being a 
pleasant temperature at this altitude and 90 not so 
bad; such persons neither eat, dress nor live ac- 
cording to the dictates of common sense. They per- 
sist in their heavy winter diet, clasp winter clothing 
to melting bosoms, and imagine that open doors and 
windows in abundance during the heat of the day 
will keep the house cool. In New Mexico one can 
keep cool indoors if one will; in much traveling 
elsewhere in summer I have often been unable to 
achieve this desired consummation. Our rainy sea- 
son to the contrary notwithstanding, the humid 



60 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

heaviness of low altitudes rarely comes nigh us. 
Sunstrokes and heat-prostrations are unknown, and 
no matter to what heija:ht the thermometer may rise 
later, the morning hours are as the very Dayspring 
from on high, and around our rural retreat sings 
all night the tempered breeze from east or south. I 
have stood even at noon watering stock in the broil- 
ing sun — and no one devoid of practical knowledge 
is acquainted with the leisurely habits of the drink- 
ing animal — having to mark time with my thinly 
shod feet to keep them off the redhot ground, when 
suddenly up has sprung the vivifying breeze of the 
country, and at once I am cool, almost cold ! Conse- 
quently the same given temperature at high altitude 
and low altitude implies perhaps twenty degrees of 
difference in one's feelings. 

As July approaches it behooves the farmer to 
keep that weather eye, of which mention has been 
made, very wide open. Let him pay no heed to the 
man minus the aforesaid eye, or to the city dweller 
whose mind is akin to a sieve. The Tenderfoot 
in particular must beware of the latter, who may as- 
sure him that there has been no rain for two or 
three years. Watch the knowing ranchman's face 
when such assertions are made by those whose 
memories are of sieve-like quality. He has lost, and 
he knows. Too vividlv his mind recalls many a 
downpour of the previous summer, ruined 
alfalfa and sodden cane — and o-rimlv he smileth. 
Therefore is it incumbent on the ranching 
person to take note. For instance. I sally 
forth some clear, exquisite July or August 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 61 

morning and perceive upon the Organ peaks a 
cloud no larger than a man's hand. I lOok upon my 
second crop of purple alfalfa and sigh, but what 
must be, must be, and I send the grumbling mowers 
away — who proceed to cut their own crop instead of 
mine, and while it lies helpless down comes a raging 
thunderstorm. But it is not my hay. 

One summer I was compelled to abandon my 
ranch at the date of that second cutting. For the 
first time, and the last, in my ranching history I 
lost the entire crop. Why? Because the men in 
charge, who not only were to share the expected 
harvest but were older residents than I, had kept 
their weather eyes closed. In return for such losses 
and muddy roads and sometimes leaky roofs, a 
luscious green which climbs high up on the 
granite peaks delights the Arid Belt habitant — such 
green, such a wealth of rampant wild flowers, as is 
rare elsewhere in midsummer — rare, because this 
green is so fresh and young, and abides with us for 
months. The earth and all that is therein has 
turned backward, and there remains. 

Occasionally the too credulous Tenderfoot is 
entrapped. Maybe, attracted by the abnormally 
fertile soil, whose reasonable reason he does not 
suspect, or beguiled by a real-estater, he has bought 
and built and settled himself in the Valley, unmind- 
ful of a dry arroyo at his back. His crops are fine, 
and he is a happy man — -for the nonce. Then one 
dreadful day the storm descends, the arroyo fills 
and sweeps down upon his land ; it is a lake and his 
house stands alone in its midst. He has come to 



62 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

the Arid Belt to be ruined by an overplus of water. 
What irony of fate is this! A fate from which 
some charitable soul might have saved him, provided 
he had been willing to accept counsel. But charity 
and real-estating seldom walk hand in hand ; neith- 
er is the newcomer to be consoled by the information 
that it may be four, five or more years before to his 
like catastrophe is repeated. He returns to his 
own wet country, shaking the mud of the dry coun- 
try from his feet. 

But in mid June the rainy season is still on the 
horizon, and this particular Sunday is typically 
warm and dry. As the day grows the cows seek 
the shade of the sheds, the hens that of their brush 
arbors, or else walk around with lifted wings and 
open beaks like tentative dancers — but then hens 
are absurd creatures anyhow. The roosters com- 
port themselves in a more seemly manner. The 
horses, with apparent inconsistency, are inclined to 
seek the sunshine, for the reason that flies prefer 
the shade. Hilda, the big St. Bernard — or Bravo, 
the mongrel collie of dearer memory — extends her- 
self in the yet damp acequia, and emerges there- 
from a drab, queer, clipped being, unrecognizable 
as one of high degree, or when Ricardo arrives sub- 
mits unwillingly to cooling showers from buckets. 

And now by the tail wagging of all the dogs, the 
Chihuahuas uttering their characteristic note of 
welcome, and by the nickering of horses in corral 
or pasture and the faint lowing of cows, Ricardo 
has appeared upon the hitherto silent stage. Anon 
he will bring my buggy, and I and the little dogs 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 6Z 

will bury ourselves in the recesses of its top and 
hie us to dine with friendly neighbors. 

Sometimes, for weeks at a time, it chances that 
the days only can be spent at the ranch, and in win- 
ter at set of sun we betake ourselves for the night 
to our healthseekers' ranch resort, as sure of our 
welcome as anyone can be who passes much of a 
limited leisure with invalids and their relatives far 
from homx and friends. 

When in summer it is deemed desirable that I 
should thus abandon my adobe home, we prefer — 
at least I do — to first meander in the twilight adown 
the Valley road, over which hangs close and low 
a cloud of dust not there by day, to right and left 
of which smile superior green meadows and patches 
of corn, further yet the dark mesa sharply outlined 
upon the coppery west, and in the east the solemn 
violet peaks of evening. Self contained and re- 
mote, Nature watches us groping along our blinded 
course. 

But at the end of the road there are lights and the 
patter of young feet hurrying to meet us, and a 
scramble to climb in where we all are, and boy 
voices — and we are no more alone. 

Best of all does it seem, when possible, to remain 
beneath one's own roof tree, to partake of a primi- 
tive supper of bread and milk, and then mount and 
ride away into a world all one's own, into which no 
man, or woman either, ever enters. Here all is 
still, silent, mysterious with the mystery of the 
Great South West. Nature stands aloof as always, 
but now with her finger on her lip. ''Hush!" she 



64 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

breathes to the few who lift their eyes unto the 
hills. Deep, rich, subdued are the hues of her early 
night, from the brown of the acequia whispering 
beneath the olive of tall weeds and rustling cane 
and arching trees, to the profound yet pellucid ul- 
tramarine of the mountains and the mystic sweep 
of heaven. . . . 

Homewardbound my unshod pony steals rhyth- 
mically up the drive, through a dusk heavy with the 
fragrance of china trees and blossoming meadows. 
The embowered house sits dumb, solitary and un- 
welcoming — not physically empty but heart and 
soul empty. By day it and the surrounding ranch 
may have rung to the shouts of happy boys, but now 
a sense of loneliness unspeakable, indescribable — 
nay, of abandonment — hovers around my brown 
mansion. T divest my pony of saddle and bridle and 
open for her the pasture gate. In an instant she 
and her constant companion are nickering on each 
others' necks, while I. still with that strange sense 
of homelessness, walk slowly to my home. The 
screen door of the illuminated kitchen flies wide, 
and with weird strains of rapture, neither howls 
nor whines, two white specks flash toward me 
through the dusk. 

Who said there was no welcome for me? Nay, 
forsooth, it is a royal welcome! 

Rising in the night watches, slumber hard to be 
entreated, T look forth on the chanceful and now 
moonlit spaces overswept bv wide win^fed shadows, 
stealthv visitants from the Great Unknown. Silence 
reigns but for the rarely hushed sigh and murmur 



TH E DESERT AND THE ROSE 65 

of the southwestern summer night. Then, rushing 
fearlessly into the stillness, ring out the exultant 
notes of the mocking bird in his prime — lord of 
Love and Life, challenging, as it were, the Im- 
mutable, the Eternal, which answer not. His voice 
breaks, droops, dies away in a long questioning 
whisper. The swift cool breeze tosses the cotton- 
wood leaves in the face of the silver moon, and 
swings away across the desert to where the untrod- 
den spires of the mountains cleave the sky, them- 
selves as unheeding, as indifferent. 

The moments pass solemnly. The bird lifts his 
wild voice no more. The winds pause in their flight. 
The darkest hour before the dawn is at hand. 

"The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, 

And the weary winds are silent, and the moon is in the deep ; 

Some respite from its restlessness unresting ocean knows. 

Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep. 
Thou in the grave shalt rest. . . . 



CHAPTER VI 
THE PEON 

For the first few months of my career as an 
employer of Mexican labor in New Mexico I re- 
ceived the pardonable impression that the attitude 
most affected by our fellow citizen and fellow voter 
was that of his head in a wine barrel and his legs at 
right angles thereto. This impression, even as 
many others, underwent modifications. Neverthe- 
less it cannot be denied that the Mexican peon is, 
more often than not, fond of his drink. In these 
later years the training camp, with its discipline and 
enforcement of the liquor law, found favor with 
the very parents of the Mexican boys themselves; 
and it should be added in common justice that the 
number of young Mexicans who volunteei-ed with- 
out waiting to be drafted exceeded that of Ameri- 
cans. This fact, creditable as it was, had its draw- 
backs at first because of the language difficulty, a 
considerable proportion of the new arrivals being 
unable to speak English. But to return to former 
days. 

The rancher who was not the owner of a vine- 
yard was a rarity. The feet of the native had not 
forgotten how to tread the wine-press, and the skin 
of a steer swelled with new wine was yet to be seen 
suspended outside the dwelling of the landowner — 
may yet be seen in remoter portions of the State. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE (iJ 

The shiftless type of peon, crawling along a road 
on some bitter, brilliant winter morning, crouched 
on the seat of his ramshackle wagon behind a team 
of dejected ponies, a blanket pulled over head and 
shoulders, the point where his nose might presum- 
ably exist buried in his knees, came in well as a 
figure for a middle distance. If not in his wagon 
or on his horse he might — nay may — be observed 
squatting by the dozen in winter against a sun 
warmed wall — "the Mexican fireplace" — smoking 
the perennial cigarette, gambling possibly at monte 
or chiisas, or better still, simply chattering, and us- 
ually about nothing whatever ; for it is a garrulous 
race even when hardworking. But the Mexican is 
seldom a hobo or a beggar, and is not addicted to 
tramping the country without an object. When he 
walks, he walks rapidly. He does not stroll. But 
then neither does he walk if he can get out of it, 
thus resembling all Southern races as I have known 
them. Yet watch a gang of Mexicans going to or 
from work in some city; their gait approaches the 
dogtrot of the pure Indian. 

The peon is also akin to the negro in one respect, 
if not more : the life of the ranchwoman is largely 
consumed in gathering up his leavings ; yet if a long 
apprenticeship has been served with the happy-go- 
lucky darkey, the inevitable is submitted to with 
reasonable philosophy. Everything, in short, on the 
ranch is just where it ought not to be and never 
where it should be. Work presses, and some indis- 
pensable article is missing. "Where is it?" "Quien 
sahe!" accompanied by a shrug which is the soul 



68 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

of amiability. The retort courteous but unsatisfy- 
ing. 

Now there was Ascencion, who wore somewhat 
the air of a peacable Spanish hidalgo, and who was 
"not used to being hurried." He was ornamental, 
his manners were pleasing, his English fair to mid- 
dling, and he was not unkind to animals, so long 
as their demands upon him were not too exacting. 
Sober and honest, he was therefore agreeable in 
every capacity save that for which he was hired, i. e. 
work. Had I been in a position to give wages in re- 
turn for a few trifling chores our pleasant relations 
might have longer endured ; as it was we parted at 
the end of six months, several weeks of which were 
absorbed by the duties attendant on getting mar- 
ried — »an afifair which for the peon bridegroom 
making an alliance somewhat above his station ap- 
pears to be beset with difficulties. New relatives 
had to be courteously entreated — chiefly fed, and 
thirst assuaged — lavishly and numerously : wedding 
garments had to be provided for bride as well as 
groom by the groom, and my wagon and team were 
in constant request on the strength of wages yet on 
the dim horizon. For me also was the privilege of 
presenting an adobe home to the newly weds. But 
then I could subsist meanwhile on the cheap fare 
of hope — which proved, as is not uncommon, a 
delusion. Whether Ascencion found the effort of 
living up to his bride too great an effort, or whether 
I was merely reaping the everyday fruits of kind- 
nesses bestowed, is uncertain, but it was certain 
that the toil of my peon became more intermittent, 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 69 

if possible, and that better than ever he loved to 
sit in the shadow of his own fig-tree and gaze with 
primeval calm upon stationary horses hitched to a 
stationary plow. Thus we parted. And as Ascen- 
cion belonged to my tenderfoot days he has never 
been duplicated on my estate. 

As an experienced employer of labor — and here 
is it amiss to question if the employer has not some- 
thing to learn in this employing business even as has 
the employed ? — I have never believed in demonstra- 
tive supervision. Wiser is it, mayhap, to ''keep eyes 
in the back of the head." Thus: one day I stood 
on the mounting block in front of my Southern 
home, waiting for my husband. As men usually 
have to be waited for, I was unperturbed. (Here 
it is best to pause and nail my colors to the mast ere 
some indignant masculine hand tears them down.) 
Our faithful William stood at the heads of the 
blooded team, and my roving glance lit casually on 
the silken quarters of the near mare. "Now Mis', 
now Mis' !" ejaculated William, stammering in his 
haste as his custom was — "Dat ain't no dust on 
Lemma ! Sw'ar to gracious dat ain't no dust on 
dat mah !" My husband joining me at the moment 
we both laughed, but on my return to Aunt Hannah 
in the kitchen she delivered herself as follows: 
"William, he come in mah kitchen and says *Mis', 
she got eyes in de back of her haid!' An' ef dat 
ain't gospel truf too!" 

In New Mexico, also, many words may prove de- 
leterious rather than helpful in that matter of labor. 
I prefer to abstain from hovering over my workers, 



70 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

but instead have a way of appearing quite unex- 
pectedly, and if the job is not being done to suit me 
have the difficulty rectified without unpleasantness 
on either side. It seems to me that labor of every 
color has a weakness for being trusted — up to a cer- 
tain point. But if I have two or more men working 
I see to it that they are widely separated, though to 
arrange Mexicans beyond the limits of shouting 
distance in our thin atmosphere is scarcely possible. 
But shouting makes a noise, and the Senora is 
known to possess ears as well as eyes. 

Juan, my champion worker, never fails to find 
me men who are middling to good as to industry ; 
and he always serves me first when laborers are in 
demand. One day, having already engaged him- 
self to a newcomer before I put in my plea, he pro- 
mised to send me a good man to clean my acequias. 
Early the next morning I sallied forth to find that, 
as usual, he had kept his word. An hour or so later, 
greatly to my surprise, I discovered Juan himself, 
shoveling out dirt and weeds at express speed. Nat- 
urally I exclaimed. 

''Si, Senora. That Sefior Z. knows nothing. I 
will not work for any man who stands over me and 
watches all the time — no, Senora!" 

Thus was merit rewarded. I did not watch Juan, 
and for me he accomplished marvels. 

Ricardo, the boy, who served me loyally many 
years, had more than a touch of poco tiempo in his 
make-up. Should my pent emotions suddenly ex- 
plode in the loud remonstrance — ''O, hurry, hurry, 
hurry, Ricardo, or I shall go crazy!" the sense of 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 71 

humor so often possessed by his race causes this 
exhibition of speed mania to appeal to him as a 
good joke, and he snatches up the handles of the 
wheelbarrow and g-oes off at a round trot, continuing 
thus to trot until the work is done. 

The peon's forbears at the coming of the Span- 
iards were not only skilled but industrious, as all 
history proves, and any laziness evinced by the mod- 
ern peon is set down to mismanagement by govern- 
ment and church. The effect of climate it surely is 
not! The very idea is ludicrous, and not borne out 
by facts. 

Let us turn from personal experiences with the 
peon to read the words of an American long resi- 
dent in Mexico ; and neither is he alone in his opin- 
ion, being upheld by several residents in both New 
and old Mexico. I myself have heard those who 
have employed peon labor in numbers and for half 
a lifetime declare that the Mexican will give his 
very life for white men who know how to win his 
esteem and confidence. 

"The Mexican peon is naturally a faithful, loyal 
associate and helper ; he is trustworthy ; he believes 
it to be a priceless honor to be confided in. . . , All 
men, however, irrespective of nationality, if dis- 
trusted and watched will frequently let the watcher 
have what he is looking for." 

In respect to business arrangements, verbal con- 
tracts and so forth I myself have found the peon 
more to be depended upon than many a person of 
other nationality. On first coming to this Valley I 
was assured by Americans, who understood the 



72 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

Mexican as well as any white men can understand 
the soundless depths of alien and colored races, that 
this would be the case. As for the common accusa- 
tion that Mexicans never keep their promises, for 
a number of years I was in a position to state that 
Mexicans kept their word as often as Americans 
did; unfortunately since bein^s: brought into contact 
with the youthful "educated" peon I have mis- 
2:ivings on that score. In regard to paying their 
debts, our resident in Mexico has more to say: 

"I have trusted hundreds of Mexicans in small 
accounts. . . . Some have not paid ; some could not 
pay and continue to eat. In hundreds of cases the 
debtors would appear sooner or later and take from 
their bosom the petty slip of account, where they 
had guarded it with religious care for months until 
in their narrow lives the small sum would be saved 
for payment." 

At this point it may well be quoted : He that is 
without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. 

Furthermore I have been assured by those in 
charee of hospitals, and also by medical men, that 
the Mexican, rich or poor, pays his bills far more 
promptly and willingly than does the American; 
and here again the numerous exceptions do but 
prove the rule. 

The unspeakable conditions prevailing in Mexico 
— the cruelties, the outrageous oppression, vouched 
for bv competent witnesses, the ^ long bondage of 
peonage — could result but in one way: Revolution. 
It is one of the tragedies of modern times that re- 
volt, though absolutely unavoidable, has done noth- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 7Z^ 

ing for the once desirable peon but transform him 
into a lawless bandit dreaded and even hated by our 
New Mexican peons, yet how profoundly to be pit- 
ied ! Sentimentality plays no part in such compas- 
sion ; for it has its source in knowledge of facts. 

Not long ago I heard Mexican labor lauded by 
South Eastern Texans and greatly preferred to 
that of (southern) Italians. 

'The disparagement of the Mexican character 
so commonly indulged in was long ago concentrated 
in the typical designation of them as 'greaser', a 
term intended to be disparaging and insulting." The 
like spirit of intolerance toward the peon, taking it 
for granted that he is "no good," prevails overmuch 
in our Valley, and the newcomer would find it to his 
advantage to meet the peon at least half way. He 
will lose nothing by so doing and may possibly gain 
something. 

As for the peon's thievish propensities, I regret 
to be unable to join the loud chorus of accusation 
against him. Perhaps I have suffered in small 
measure because of a lengthy acquaintance with the 
darkey and his little ways, although neither Mexi- 
can nor darkey has so far equalled the "swiping" 
accomplished by fairer "help." And thief or no, it 
must never be forgotten that the peon is the ever 
convenient Cat-that-steals-the-cream ; of course no 
one but a Mexican would steal! Possessions of 
great or little value have, I admit, passed beyond my 
ken, but without exception the abductor in the case 
of valuables has been a white person. It should be 
added, nevertheless, that the peon has a well nigh 



74 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



uncontrollable passion for blankets — Navajos for 
choice — but a stable blanket will serve. On cold 
nights when my horses were free to leave their 
shelter and roam the fields if they preferred, each 
horse wore a blanket made fast with surcingle and 
strap, and more than once, the animals being used 
to handling, there appeared in the morning a strip- 
ped horse. But Ricardo, on his own suggestion, soon 
settled this matter by ''laying for" the thief, armed 
with my shotgun. 

In my ranching years there could be no question 
as to the desirability of Mexican labor for the lone 
woman. The "I'm much better than you are" of 
the white man or woman made a sorry showing be- 
side the peon's courtesy to the Seiiora for whom he 
worked; he carried himself, in short, and generally 
speaking, with the courtesy of the gentleman born, 
poor and uneducated though he was. He would 
also work more faithfully for the Unprotected Fe- 
male than he would for the Protected — generally 
speaking again. It may further be affirmed that no 
woman could have passed weeks and months alone 
on a farm in the Black Belt without molestation. 
Yet this I did, and without near neighbors, though 
I did not remain alone in my house at night, that not 
being deemed quite wise. Another ranchwoman, 
living a couple of miles beyond me, drove herself 
home for years after dark if so disposed, and was 
never so much as startled. Even in later times, with 
its alarms of border raids, the general opinion in 
our Valley inclined to absolute faith in our Valley 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 75 

Mexicans, and up to date this faith has not been 
found wanting". 

In using the past tense in regard to the peon, this 
is not to say that there are no good peons left, or 
that the "educated" peon is invariably inferior. But 
neither education — if it can be called such — nor 
mission schools have affected in the slightest degree 
the Mexican's partiality for following the line of 
least resistance : he is a better liar, especially in his 
youth, than the very darkey himself. This may be 
saying much, yet not too much. The latter is ham- 
pered by the knowledge that any Southerner, or one 
who has lived long in the South, is capable of dis- 
criminating and eliminating even whilst lending a 
kindly ear to African eloquence. This is not to say 
that a beneficent tolerance checks the eloquence, 
but the slightest expression of disbelief may 
cause a certain embarrassment. The Mexican, 
on the contrary, is never embarrassed; he 
either entertains a faith absolutely sublime 
in the American's credulitv and so g:lides unper- 
turbed upon his errant course, or he is more stupid 
than our old friend the "cullud Dusson" : the latter, 
I incline to believe. The American's sole hope lies 
in a firm but silent disregardofthepeon's assertions. 
I have known truthful Mexicans, but not many. To 
differ from the average peon is vain ; with the dark- 
ey, as aforesaid, some effect may be produced. For 
instance : after listening for long minutes to a ran- 
dom flow of words from an intelligent and faithful 
colored servant, I sighed wearily — ^"O, William, 
why zuill you lie so!" In a moment William's gait 



76 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

broke, he stammered — "Now Mis', now Mis', I 
doan' know why I Hes! I jes' lies!" 

An Australian of mark and prominence has re- 
cently declared "that it would be better for the fut- 
111-0 ^vorld if each race should develoD alone its own 
distinctive lines." Never was there a truer word! 
Provided, of course, that every and each race has 
its distinctive lines. The Mexican race down to the 
humblest peon is distinguished by the fact that it 
possesses artistic tendencies and often talents far 
in advance of the race which is in most other re- 
spects its superior. The same may be said of other 
foreign races, but we are dealing" now with the 
Mexican. To Americanize him in the highest sense 
is one thing; cheap Americanization quite another. 
Unfortunately the ignorant and not often over alert 
young peon is inclined to imitate the Citizen Genet 
type of American — that outrageous offshoot of so- 
called civilization severely rebuked time and again 
by Washington himself. Of Citizen Genets we al- 
ready possess a surplus without adding to their 
number with the erstwhile courteous Mexican, 
whose up-to-date manners are enoueh to make their 
angels weep; indeed it is permissible to wonder in 
one's darkest hours if they have any angels? On 
the Citizen Genet model then "educated" Mexican 
youth too often models itself — a double aggravation 
because in the case of the peon bad manners are 
such an ostentatious demoralization. Native cour- 
tesy, untampered with, is so balmy and blessed a 
thing, holding also the additional charm of being 
inbred and guiltless of either servility or fawning. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 77_ 

One of two wellbred young Americans, discus- 
sing a certain incident in my presence, concluded the 
recital with a comprehensive wave of the hand and 
the ejaculation — "Well, you know what the educated 
Mexican girl is!" 

Pity 'tis, 'tis true ! 

The peon, not unlike the negro, who has benefited 
to any marked extent, or who has "been made over" 
by the superficial and overcrowded instruction 
thrust upon him by the public school, is "different," 
i. e. is not a representative specimen. All through 
the pedagogic world the idle struggle to force the 
round ball into the square hole persists, although 
the trenchant criticisms, promoted by the early fail- 
ures in training camps for American officers and 
which failures were in large measure laid to our 
public school system, have aroused that noble dis- 
content which makes for the onlv progress worth 
while. Illiteracy, it is discovered, is far from being 
confined to aliens and still have we to learn, or dis- 
cover, that instruction is not education — distinctly 
not — and that it is just here that the Home must 
supplement the School. How often does it? So far 
as the peon is concerned, it stands to reason that he 
must learn to read and write our language, but to 
educate him "aivay from" (as has been aptly re- 
marked) his natural bent is surely a blunder. The 
Mexican public school child discards the useful lore 
of his parents handed down through the ages, their 
skill in ways he wots not of, their capacity for 
lovaltv and affection, their courtesy aforementioned, 
and with a head not conspicuous for brilliancy woe- 



78 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

fully crammed with perfectly useless lumber, leaves 
school with his native tastes undeveloped or utterly 
swamped — in other words, he is neither fish, flesh, 
fowl nor 2^ood red herrinja^. This may be considered 
an extreme case, but such extreme cases are quite 
common. If Education for Citizenship, and the 
Worthy Use of Leisure, often cry vainly for a hear- 
ing- where American youth is in question, how much 
more so is this the case with an alien race? 

The Mexican g-irl, whatever may be said to the 
contrary by those who do not know how to 
approach her, has an undeveloDed talent for 
home-making-; her inherited love for the beauti- 
ful renders her, I have been told by heads 
of dressmaking establishments, an invaluable seam- 
stress : in the florist line she is born to excel. Train- 
ing would make her a good nurse, and among her 
feminine elders expert masseuses of a skill inherited 
from the Indians, may still be found. Both sexes 
are almost passionately musical, though one re.grets 
to perceive a decline in this passion among the "edu- 
cated" young peons. A correct ear, however, and 
a love of good music — when not perverted by cheap 
associations, — are still constantly to be met with. 
A young peon who could neither read nor speak 
Enp-lish was helping me clean house one Spring day. 
and his eyes lighting on my Victrola, he exclaimed — 
"Oh, and do you love Caruso? How many of his 
records have you? I saved my money and bought 
with it a \''ictrola for my mother, and with every 
cent more I save I buy Caruso!" And then lend a 
shrinking ear to the raucous and terrible outcries 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 79 

projected into the open by many an American's 
"talking machine!" 

Yet even those who entertain the kindest feelings 
toward the Mexican must perforce acknowledge 
that the race possesses certain trying character- 
istics. (What of our own race? Is it free from 
human blemish?) To me, personally, the Mexican 
girl, and in a lesser degree the boy, is but in one 
respect exasperating beyond endurance. No matter 
how dependable, intelligent and sensible one's hand- 
maiden may be as a soloist, let company in the shape 
of visiting girl friends arrive, and she drops every- 
thing, throws courtesy and decency to the winds 
and becomes for the nonce a giggling, nay gibber- 
ing idiot. The house may burn down for all she 
cares, this dependable maiden, and she runs shriek- 
ing off with her friends, to return only when the 
crazy spell has spent itself. It is well, therefore, to 
accord her gratefully all the "afternoons off" she 
desires, for thus may you be sure of peace in your 
home. This stricture applies solely to the "edu- 
cated" Mexican; in former davs home training: pre- 
vailed in the Mexican adobe, and such discourtes- 
ies were unknown. 

It must be persistently repeated, for it is so often 
forgotten, that in ancient and alien races there are 
depths that no mere modern white person can ever 
hope to sound, subconscious memories and heritages 
which shape our efforts to their ends, not to ours. 
But when time, opportunity and financial conditions 
permit, the mass of Mexican peons with whom we 
are so closely associated will undoubtedly become 



80 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



better American citizens by having their special 
needs considered, their special tendencies developed, 
whether by technical schools, manual training: or 
v^hatever form of genuine education may be deemed 
by the best authorities suitable. 

And now to dip once more into the past as rep- 
resented by some dozen or more years ago. 

There came a summer in which Juan brought his 
little family to dwell in the rear of the big ranch 
house for my protection. Juan is the owner of a 
temper, though never "turning it loose" in my pres- 
ence, near as he shaved that catastrophe on one oc- 
casion. He is quick to resent from an American 
any treatment not in accordance with his own 
notions of etiquette, but toward me his unaffected 
courtesy never failed. And it is fair to add that 
in the six or seven months he had his abode beneath 
my roof I never heard his voice raised in anger eith- 
er when addressing: wife or children or the old 
woman temporarily his guest. 

The agricultural Mexican — and agriculture is 
the avocation in which he is at his best — is for the 
most part a good husband and father, relative and 
friend, unless he is in his cuds, an event which takes 
place too often. But Juan is never in them, and the 
strong family affection characteristic of the peon 
unspoiled by city life is in his family very much in 
evidence. With justifiable pride Juan remarks — 
"I used to drink like those others do, but it doesn't 
pay. I drink a little — si, a very little — every day. 
Now Luciano, he keeps a pitcher of wine by his 
bedside. If he wakes in the night he takes a drink 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 81 

therefore you see how things are with him!" I do 
see, every week. 

It is pretty to watch the two small boys run to 
meet Juan returning from work, and while each 
little hand is clasped in that of the father to hear 
him question them thus: 

''Have the tmichachitos been good today? Have 
they gathered wood for la Mama?" — and so forth. 

It should be further adduced that Mexicans in 
general are good to each other in trouble or sick- 
ness. 

The vicious drop in the blood where domestic 
animals are in question crops out, however, even in 
pleasing families like that of Juan. Pancho, the lit- 
tlest boy, is a terror ! No sentient thing escapes his 
diabolical handling. Ricardo, who adores animals, 
is bitter in his denunciations of the small sinner. 

"I cannot leave my pony tied to a tree when 
Pancho is around !" 

One day I took Pancho under advisement, his 
father standing by, tolerant and amused, and in 
awesome words described the tortures I would in- 
flict upon him if ever again he tortured Ricardo's 
pony or his mother's chickens (for some reason he 
kept his infamous paws off mv livestock) and thus 
temporarily cured him. Several years after this 
incident I chanced to come upon Pancho, a grown 
boy, working for friends of mine. He recognized 
me immediately, and lifting his hat in the courteous 
peon manner, held out his hand. As we "shook" 
and exchanged greetings, a blush rose to his some- 
what fair countenance, and he made it clear that he 



82 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

had not forg-otten another interview of a less ag:ree- 
able character. 

To behold the typical peon handling a work team 
and to remain unmoved, one must be either a stoic 
or — well, something worse. Yet I have found by- 
experience that the peon can be vastly improved in 
this respect — by example, by appealing to his pride 
and by yet other means. But the peon comes by 
his cruelty by right of inheritance; this cannot be 
said of the white man. That the highest form of 
civilization is not compatible with hardness of heart 
toward animals is a truth which takes long to im- 
press itself on new communities, and consideration 
for the welfare or susceotibilities of dumb and 
dependent creatures is even to this day often looked 
on askance by the majority, be they white or brown. 
Therefore it may be opined that the "cruel" Mexican 
has a scarcity of what are styled "good examples" 
by which to benefit. 

To go back to Juan as an inmate of my house. On 
such evenings as I rested quietly on my front porch, 
a little dog on either side and a big one at my feet, 
peace reigned, despite the proximity of seven per- 
sons. Through the brown tranquillity of twilight 
the cheap jew's-harp at the father's lips blended 
harmoniously with the low songs of mother and 
children, seated on the hard adobe ground back of 
the house. This mode of spending the evening after 
the day's work might be that queer, somewhat in- 
definite thing "un-American", but it struck more 
sweetly on the ear of the solitary listener than the 
whoops of civilization at play. Not that I have any 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 83 

objection to the noise of "kids" in its place, but it 
is peculiarly out of place in the hush of evening 
characteristic of our Land of Mystery. 

And now to tell of the solitary instance of Juan 
coming near to losing his temper with me ; because 
he has been in my employ a long time he begins to 
believe he may control certain matters, after the 
manner of faithful servitors. But Ricardo has al- 
so worked long for me — the half Yaqui boy of the 
cameo-like profile, whose mother is of the breed of 
whom it has been said that one such Indian is equal 
to three Mexicans. Ricardo's (Mexican) attacks 
of poco tiempo are outweighed by his excellent men- 
tal equipment and, most surprising trait of all, de- 
votion to animals. The father of Ricardo is a little 
sawxd-ofif Mexican peon of limited brain power. 

One afternoon arrived Juan on my stage, very 
evidently "seeing red". 

"Senora, that boy must go this night ! By morn- 
ing I will find you a better boy." 

"What is the trouble, Juan?" 

"He meets Jesuscita at the pump!" 

Jesuscita is Juan's thirteen year old daughter in 
short frocks and pigtail, who is already considered 
too old to travel to town unless accompanied by one 
or both parents. Also she is comely. By chance I 
had witnessed that brief primal meeting at the 
pump, a piece of noonday innocence; for Ricardo 
lives on his father's ranch. 

"And what of that, Juan ! Ricardo lifts his som- 
brero to a pretty child and wishes her a respectful 
Good Day." 



84 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

*'He must go, Senora! T will drive him oft' this 
ranch with my gun !" 

Juan's voice is raised with a threat in it, so I rise 
to my feet and the occasion : iust here forbearance is 
not the better part. To lose Tuan would spell calam- 
ity, but as with the nes:ro so with the peon : face the 
music and take chances ! 

"Juan ! I shall not send Ricardo away because he 
has once spoken with Jesuscita at the pump ! Neither 
do I permit you to drive him off my ranch with 
your gun! My ranch, Juan — sabe?" 

Seconds of agonizing suspense! Would Juan 
"fire" himself? He was looking down, shuffling 
his moccasined feet in the dust. Finally he spoke, 
sullen but submissive. 

''Si, Sefiora. . . .But will you speak to Richardo?" 

I wnll. I do. And as Ricardo, his Yaqui blood 
to the contrary, is not precisely daring:, all g-oes well. 

To close with one more anecdote. 

Manuel is a good neighbor, but he has a wild 
craze for water gates. As nothing availed to curb 
it I devised a method for chaining the gates in the 
ditches. Thereafter I slept in peace. Manuel is 
a good farmer, owns moreover many head of stock, 
and greatest of treasures a bosque ; he cannot be in 
pressing need of firewood. 

It is an error of judgment to inquire of pilferers 
of whatsoever color whether they took this or the 
other. Be very sure of your facts — then go ahead ! 

"Manuel" I remarked mildly one morning, "Why 
do you take my water gates ?" 

Assailed thus unawares, and having believed 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 85 

maybe in common with some of my whiter neigh- 
bors that the Senora is an Easy Mark, Manuel 
shuffled his feet in the dust, looking: silly and sheep- 
ish. Now Manuel being the homeliest man in New 
Mexico sheepishness is not becoming to his peculiar 
style. 

''Well, don't do that any more. Come, and let 
me take your picture! One of our healthseekers 
wants it." 

Ignorant of the motive for that desire Manuel 
grinned approvingly, and for a period of weeks left 
my water gates severely alone. But the day arrived 
when, as mentioned above, they had to be chained. 
Yet Manuel is no common thief. 

Having alluded earlier in this chapter to the num- 
ber of volunteer or drafted Mexicans who could 
neither speak, read nor write English, it is but fair 
to take note of the proposed attack by Congress "up- 
on the national disgrace of illiteracy" — an illiteracy 
which is far from being confined to aliens, nor even 
to certain sections. Many of the illiterates are 
nativeborn whites, a fact long familiar to me, per- 
sonally, but disregarded in the waving of flags and 
shouting of shibboleths. Trainins: camps have dis- 
closed much, very much, that is lacking in our so- 
called educational methods ; the wonder is that such 
disclosures were necessary? For not only is il- 
literacy revealed, but the vital necessity for "a 
broader policy of public education" — so that, in 
fact, it may be worthy of the name Education and 
cease to stand complacently beneath the poor little 



86 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

banner of Instruction. How many "good" Amer- 
icans, fluttering proudly that insignificant banner, 
can write their native language intelligibly or speak 
it without sending shudders down the backbone of 
the educated American? As for the mode of speech 
a fair percentage of teachers — but here the curtain 
must be dropped in haste. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE INDIAN, THE MEXICAN AND 
THE CHURCH 

"During the lifetime of the adventurer called Don Ruy Sandoval 
the province of Nev^r Spain along the Rio Grande Del Norte was 
locked and barred against the seeker of gold or of souls — it was 
the closed land of mystery; the province of sorcerers, where Mother 

Earth hid beneath her heart the symbol of the Sun Father Fires 

were lit as they have been lighted for centuries that the god Po- 
seyemo might know that their faith in the Valley of the Great River 
was yet strong for the ancient gods. Three centuries of the re- 
ligion of the white strangers have not made dim the signal fires 
to those born of the sky." — The Flute of the Sky. 

Is there anything new under the sun? Now in 
place of Hg-hting- fires on the mountain in honor of 
the great god Po-se-yemo, the Mexicans and In- 
dians, encouraged in superstition of another variety 
by the Church, light these fires to show Our Lady 
of Guadalupe the way down the Valley of the Great 
River. Of course she has been to visit us once, 
innumerable years ago, but it is presumed she has 
forgotten the trail. The Church makes handsome 
use of many an ancient heathen tradition, and this 
represents just one. But it is eminently pictur- 
esque, not to say beautiful. For days previous to 
this sacred December night the devoutly inclined 
native gathers whatever combustible material offers 
itself, and when darkness falls dozens of little 
flames rise into the star-studded sky. There is no 
fear that Our Lady's feet may stumble. But alas ! 
she never comes. When bedtime hour arrives we 



88 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

Step out on the porch, and lift our eyes to the high 
mountains. The fires still burn. 

Professor Bandelier, the noted Santa Fe arch- 
eologist, once expressed an opinion in regard to the 
Indian which applies almost as well to the Mexican. 

"It is vain to deny that the Southwestern village 
Indian is "not an idolater at heart," but it is equally 
preposterous to assume "that he is not a sincere 
Catholic." Only he assigns to each belief a certain 
field of action and has minutely circumscribed each 
one." 

At the same time, there are ceremonious occa- 
sions in which Catholic and Pasran ideas are com- 
mingled naively enough, such for instance as that 
alluded to in a former chapter, when a statue of 
the Virgin is carried around during the green-corn 
dance, her guard of honor consisting of naked and 
bedaubed individuals beating tom-toms and firing 
guns, all this being intended to propitiate the Rain- 
God. Their dancing before the Catholic Church on 
feast days presents itself also as a composite rite. 

It is claimed on good authority that all the Indians 
are believers in magic and witchcraft, and the bulk 
of the Mexicans in witchcraft. In the large Indian 
pueblos in close touch with Americans nothing: but 
the near presence of white people has more than 
once prevented wholesale uprisings against "witch- 
es;" and even as it is isolated specimens of the 
craft, male and female, are occasionally, though se- 
cretively, killed according to the ancient and pre- 
scribed Indian method of dealing with witches. Yet 
it by no means follows that these believers in super- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 89 

stitions are barbarous any more than were the pious 
New Eng-landers who used to indulg-e in equally 
barbaric practices. In most other relations of life 
the witch-persecutors are sufficiently harmless and 
worthy. The Mexican does not often punish for 
witchcraft, partly because the Mexican witch is a 
person of lively and retaliatory character and has 
an unpleasant habit of turning on the persecutor. 
Even in our civilized Valley the Mexican does not 
discourse freely of his real and genuine witch — un- 
less in the guise of a falling star she may be per- 
ceived scurrying to some baleful interview, or the 
house-cat on its nightly prowl may caterwaul the 
information that the witch has found lodgment in 
its furry form. 

The superstitions of the Mexicans have, in cer- 
tain instances, a familiar ring to one who has spent 
many years in the heart of the South. For instance, 
there is the moon whose proceedings govern sowing 
and planting, pruning and reaping, and all the daily 
actions of the Southern farming man. Lately I 
said to Valentina, that it was sad that in my flock of 
thoroughbreds the eagerly awaited pullets should 
have proved to be merely an overplus of cockerels. 

"Ah," replied Valentina, "when you set the eggs, 
you did not watch the moon!" Valentina has lived 
with me, or rather worked for me, on and off, a 
matter of two years, but still stoutly refuses to speak 
a word of English, and indeed pretends she under- 
stands none — which is an imposition. "La luna 
cJiiquifa — oh, chiqiiitilla! — poco gallinas, mucho 
gallos! La hina gra-a-a-nde" (spreading arms and 



90 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

hands and openinj;^ mouth cavernoiisly), "miicho 
gaUiuas, poco gallos!" 

So many Mexicans applied for slips from my one 
rosemary bush to keep off the Evil Eye that ere long 
myself was bereft of that desirable protection. 

Not lon,q- before I established myself in the Val- 
ley of the Great River, our peaceable Mexican popu- 
lation strayed unexpectedly from the straight path 
of ecclesiastical virtue. A saint's day, on which 
for generations it had been their pleasure to dance, 
relic probably of some ancient rite, although but 
few Mexicans join in the Indian dances, had been 
interfered with by the priest. Now it is not well 
for even a holy padre to exceed his rights. His 
flock maintained for the nonce a passive obstinacy. 
At night-fall, however, the priest received a press- 
ing call to a dying bed ; but that was no dying bed 
to which he was hurried through the deep sand of 
the desert, through whispering cottonwood bosques, 
under a moonless sky! When at last he was es- 
corted homeward by a band of silent men, a very 
sore padre climbed alone upon the porch of his 
comfortable house and no doubt sought consolation 
for chastisement received in a brimming goblet of 
the wine of the country, of which it is affirmed that 
he always keeps a sufficiency and of the best. In 
such cases, rare as they are, the culprits are as easy 
to find as the proverbial needle in the haystack. 

The march of progress has not infallibly proved 
a blessing in disguise. With the Spaniard came 
greed and corruption, though for the former vice 
he surely paid a heavy price. The work of the 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 91 

Franciscan Friars in the sixteenth century belongs, 
nevertheless, to the age of miracles. Torn by 
thorns of cactus and mesquite, stumbling with bleed- 
ing feet over rocky mountains, wandering under the 
burning sun of the desert or lost in pathless forests 
uncertain whether life or death was to be their 
portion when by chance they lighted upon some set- 
tlement, they hurried on, succeeding or failing, but 
always going forward, losing their lives if need be — 
although it must be said that at this, the initial ap- 
pearance of the white man, the Pueblo tribes en- 
treated him gently and hospitably. 

The cruelty of the Spanish soldiery, the enslave- 
ment of a free people and the exactions of the 
Church provoked the first rebellion. A conical hill — 
one of numerous extinct volcanoes — above the river 
back of my ranch is distinguished by the legend that 
on it the Spaniards made their last stand when they 
were being driven out of the country, not to return 
for a decade or more. 

But the rebellion was yet undreamed of when the 
Holy Inquisition held its initial Santo Officio in the 
palace at Santa Fe. Without doubt those infernal 
rites had not a little to do with the explosion of 
1680, although it is by no means certain that up to 
that date the natives had suffered in person. More 
probably they were excited by rumors emanating 
from the relatives of Spanish victims. Now this 
ancient palace of priests and governors stands not 
only as one of the landmarks of history, but as the 
home of perhaps the finest archaeological collection 
in the United States, as well as of linguistic and his- 



92 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

torical libraries. New Mexico does well to treasure 
and be proud of her Palace of the Governors. It 
was within its adobe walls and towers that the 
Spaniards took refuge before fleeing from the Val- 
ley of the Rio Grande ; and here one may pause to 
speculate whether the Spanish coins unearthed from 
time to time in our vicinity may not have been 
buried during that desperate retreat from Santa 
Fe to El Paso del Norte. 

To return to the Friars Minor of the Franciscan 
order — the pioneers of the new religion — they go 
down to posterity for what they actually were; 
faithful, self-effacing and heroic workers, often 
humble and lowly men, devoid of sophistry and 
pride. The priests who succeeded them were 
Jesuits, and whatever mav be said of the splen- 
did work done by this order in New Mexico, 
by priests and sisters alike, the fact remains 
that their political meddling, here as else- 
where, combined with their attempts to control 
legislation, as also their opposition to free educa- 
tion, wrought much evil, and delayed statehood con- 
siderably longer than would otherwise have been 
the case. 

It may be questioned whether the Franciscans 
under Spanish rule were altogether responsible for 
the pest of fiestas, although these ever recurring 
holidays and fiestas which afflict the ranchman and 
woman were originally introduced by the Friars in 
the first half of the Sixteenth Century as a means 
of attracting *and holding the Indians, and some 
students of Southwestern history go so far as to 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 93 

declare that these devoted parish priests induced 
an idleness not natural to the industrious Pueblos 
and their tribal connections. History proves that 
at the first coming^ of the Spaniards the Puebloswere 
eng-aged in tilling the soil. They were also expert 
workers in silver and gold and other and various 
handicrafts, besides being accomplished builders in 
stone and wood, as the Friars discovered somewhat 
to their cost. 

For even the harsh lot of the intrepid Franciscans 
is not without its touch of humor, and the story 
of Fray Marcios de Nica in search of the fabulously 
rich city of Cibola — represented at this date by 
the town of Caquinico on the Zuni Mesa — evokes 
a smile, for the reason that his negro companion, 
Estevanico of the sixteenth centurv, bears an amus- 
ing resemblance to the negro of the twentieth. It 
may be mentioned in passing that Cibola proved to 
be no "hidden treasure" city, but simply an impos- 
ing and admirably built pueblo of rock and timber, 
inlaid with turquoises and other native precious 
stones. The Pueblos, to which tribe the Zunis be- 
long, still assert that the Emperor Montezuma was 
born at Acoma, north of Albuquerque, and that 
they are his descendants; furthermore that before 
going south he taught them how to build their great 
stone houses and estufas and to kindle their sacred 
fires, which were kept alight by priests appointed 
to guard them. 

Estevanico, therefore, being sent ahead by the 
Friar in command of three hundred Indians, and 
receiving en route liberal gifts from hospitably in- 



94 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

dined natives, acquired the "swelled head" charac- 
teristic of his race, and proceeded to seal unto him- 
self many — too many — of their women in tempor- 
ary marriage. Then as he strolled proudly on his 
way, arrayed like Solomon in all his glory but lack- 
ing the wisdom of Solomon in that he paraded his 
wives as well as his jewels, he met a fate tragic yet 
to be expected. A black man hung with precious 
stones and followed by native w^omen held in bond- 
age, who furthermore proclaimed himself the em- 
missary of a great white King, proved in the end too 
big a pill for the wise men of Cibola to swallow, so 
poor Estevanico was violantly eliminated like the ne- 
gro of later days under circumstances not wholly 
dissimilar. Fray Nica, following after, judiciously 
tarried outside the pueblo, and made short work of 
his tarrying too, taking time only to plant the ban- 
ner of Spain on a nearby mountain and then fleeing 
southward "with more fear than victuals." 

And like Fray Marcos I too must hurry on, lest 
the fascination of New Mexican history should en- 
trap me — merely remarking that the two oldest 
Missions in the United States, although unfortu- 
nately in partial or total ruin, are to be found in 
New Mexico on the site of ancient towns or pueblos 
which are yielding valuable rewards to archaeolo- 
gists and excavators. These Missions are at least 
one hundred and fifty years older than the Missions 
in California. 

Hatred of the Spaniards culminated early in the 
nineteenth century, as again in the twentieth, in the 
Mexican revolution, and the Spanish priests were 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 95 

largely replaced by natives, the Spaniards flying 
before the wrath of an oppressed race. Religious 
institutions and buildingfs saw hard times, even 
the native priesthood gradually vanishing; and al- 
though they indubitably added to the superstitions 
of their flock, they at least maintained some kind 
of religious order. But they went, and the govern- 
ment swallowed the church property in great gulps 
until the Jesuits under American rule took posses- 
sion of New Mexico. 

To revert to our own day ; the large fees demand- 
ed by the priests for all sacred ceremonies still 
exists, though in lesser degree. It is claimed for 
the Pueblo tribes that (left to their own religious 
rites and ceremonies and secret societies of sun- 
worshipers still in existence) their communities 
from earliest times compared favorably in some 
respects with those of many white communities. 
Marriage was one of the Christian ceremonies 
which, during the most corrupt era of the Catholic 
priesthood was made so expensive for the natives 
that it was often disregarded. Thus the native fell 
between two stools ; he was neither moral according 
to his ancient manner, which, it must be remem- 
bered, included as constant an increase of the tribal 
population as could be compassed ; nor moral in his 
comparativelv Christian manner. Our valley Mex- 
icans still sufl^er somewhat from priestly exactions, 
as before mentioned. 

For instance Adelado comes to me. 

''Sefiora, will you advance me five dollars?" 

"But, Adelado, you are already overdrawn!" 



96 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

"Si, Senora, but the padre, — it is to pay the 
padre." 

"The padre, Adelado? Ag^ain?" 

"Si, Senora, Tomas, he has asked me to be god- 
father to his muchachito, and to be godfather one 
pays the priest ten dollars." 

Now I happen to be in a position to ascertain that 
Adelado speaks the truth ; otherwise — ^but the Sen- 
ora is experienced in the ways of liars. 

"Juan," I said some time later. "Do 3^ou have 
to pay the padre much ?" 

Juan who had been laughing at the puppy antics 
of Montezuma, turned on me a lowering coun- 
tenance. 

"Seiiora, T am a poor man. T work hard. My 
children are many. The padre does not work. Ke 
is fat. He lives well, and has all he desires. I give 
to him — when I must, yes ! I put a dime in the box 
when I go to mass on Sunday, but I do not go too 
often. The padres rob the poor." 

The Mexican, even when a genuinely devout 
Catholic, is hospitable and courteous in his attitude 
toward other religious denominations. 

An individual styling himself a Christian worker 
was mildly active for some months amongst my 
Mexican neighbors, all of whom were Catholic. 1 
observed that they took his tracts, printed in Span- 
ish, and gave ear to his discourses with a semblance 
of appreciation. After his departure I was prompt- 
ed to inquire if he had made any converts. 

"Ah no, Seiiora! But" — here an expressive 
gesture^"this poor little queer Senor ! He did us 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 97 

no harm, and it pleased him so much that we listened 
to him and took his Httle books! What of it? We 
dropped them in the acequia and went on to mass 
just the same !" 

And if it be true that Mother Church gets a good 
deal out of her children, they get out of her some- 
thing in return — their money's worth in fiestas for 
those who choose to enjoy them. Juan despises 
these holidays, and rarely observes them. On such 
days wagons roll by from dawn till dusk laden with 
loud voiced peons, all in gala attire, the women with 
the inevitable black shawl, sorry aftermath of the 
mantilla, drawn over their heads, and in later days 
dubiously adorned with the American made hat. It 
should here be mentioned that the Mexican youth 
prefers a purple suit and a red tie, whereas the girls 
still cling for the most part to sombre shades. They 
go to mass, visit friends, talk endlessly, drink wine 
— at night perhaps hold a bailie. 

On the Eve of the Feast of St. Genevieve our 
Mexicans treat the town to an illumination. All day 
the householders are engfasred in placing rows of pa- 
per bags filled with sand alone the edees of the flat- 
roofed houses. In the sand they plant candles. 
When the hour for lighting up arrives the effect 
is bizarre and charming. The band thumps on the 
plaza, rockets whiz heavenward in honor of the 
patron saint; the scene, with all its adjuncts, is com- 
plete. When the morrow arrives, with perhaps a 
winter wind at its heels, reaction sets in. The paper 
bags tip over and spill their contents down the necks 
of unwary passersby. Naturally the bags do not 



98 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

all tip over at once, and the results are at once inter- 
mittent and protracted. But as time goes on and 
American Progress despoils our towns one by one 
of its picturesque qualities, qualities which made me 
on first coming hither rush madly for color-box and 
brushes on all sorts of inconvenient occasions, the 
inconveniences caused by St. Genevieve must van- 
ish also. For she cannot be dulv honored except from 
the flat roof of adobe houses. 

Color-box? What mockery! I push aside my 
papers as the light within doors waxes dim, and go 
to the window. All this February afternoon a cold 
southeast wind has been whining around the house, 
and now, after sunset, the stormy magnificence of 
sky and mountain beggar all attempt at description. 
Tone that magnificence down to the uttermost, re- 
produce it thus tempered in oil or water-color, and 
still will you invite but the scoffs of a world more 
ignorant than it knows. Painting such unearthly 
sky and landscape simply can't be done — or isn't 
done — either one. And yet how perfectly it "be- 
longs" in that adventurous and romantic past with 
which my mind has busied itself! 

Crimson smoke swishing across the face of some 
far ofif mountain range is just a snow flurry. That 
mighty pipe organ sizzling redhot above the bat- 
tered and sombre Valley stands for our own Organ 
Peaks, in their condensed fury scarcely recognizable 
as the rose pink, peaceful heights irradiating most 
winter gloamings. Earth and heaven have gone 
color-mad. Wild indigo clouds alternately blot out 
and frame sky-pictures fantastic as dreams. The 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 99 

western welkin resembles nothing so much as the 
tumultuous red ravings of a lunatic. 

And yet — after such near-vituperation we, being 
only human, turn aside because it is all too gor- 
geous, too beautiful. It would appear that the re- 
ceptiveness of the mortal mind has its limits, that 
it can comfortably absorb just so much and no more. 
Or, if this be not so, why the inexpressible yearning, 
the vain half conscious reaching after these "trail- 
ing clouds of glory" long left behind, the mournful- 
ness, the restlessness, call it what you will, when 
Nature overcrowds her scenes? 



CHAPTER VIII 
MINERALS, FLORA AND OTHER THINGS 

Standing at the entrance of the Pass which 
bores eastward through the Organs the contrast af- 
forded by the lonely dream of landscape before and 
the busy mining town behind is not only striking in 
itself but characteristic of this entire section. 

In strong relief against the intense blue of the 
sky uncanny desert growths give the foreground 
the aspect of a huge botanical garden ; and sloping 
gently valleyward toward the brink of the mesa the 
high country shows no sign of human life, except 
that here and there a tiny cloud of dust like a puff 
of smoke rises into the clear air, betraying the pre- 
sence of some ore wagon, auto truck or car on its 
way to or from range or town. Isolated mountains 
float like turreted and battlemented islets in the 
emeralds and azures of the valley. To the right the 
San Andreas range runs northward, while to the 
left and southward the precipices and porphyry 
spires of the Organs block the sky line. 

To our rear is another scene. Shacks and houses 
dot the rising slope to the Pass, and with steam and 
horse power men are forcing the rocky heart of the 
mountain to yield her treasures. We stand upon 
what is in fact part of "the great mineral backbone 
of the American continent." 

In a state embracing seventy-nine million acres 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 101 

the following- natural resources are found in paying 
quantities: gold, silver, copper, iron, zinc, lead, 
mica, coal, marble, fire-clay, alum, sulphur, soda, 
salt, asphalt, gypsum, not to mention tin, of recent 
discovery. Two thirds of the whole State are moun- 
tainous, and nearly all the mountains are full of 
minerals. Besides the above-mentioned resources 
precious stones of rare beauty are to be found. Of 
the extraordinary mineral wealth of the State not 
enough is known, even in quarters where knowledge 
is to be expected. The New Mexico turquoise — 
with which ancient tribes adorned themselves and 
their houses ere the invasion of the Spaniards — » 
was prized in Europe as the equal of the Persian 
stone long before it excited remark on this side, 
though at last so well appreciated in New York that 
single specimens were at one time held there at a 
price ranging from four to six thousand dollars. In 
1893 one mine sold for $250,000, and has since paid 
the purchaser a million and a half per annum. Of 
oil, in the existence of which in quantity many be- 
lieve, the time has not arrived to write confidently. 

For that form of the picturesque, however, which 
appeals as strongly to the imagination as it does to 
the eye such a rock-bound canon as we visited 
yesterday possesses a fascination more complete. 

It is mid-May and the summer rains have not yet 
come to lift the withered grasses and dip them in 
their annual bath of emerald green. I find myself 
alone at the still hour of noon. Behind and on 
either side tower tremendous walls of rock, and far 
beneath, spread like a blue sea rippling to a fresh 



102 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

ocean breeze, lies the broad valley wherein we sow 
and reap and g'ather in the crops. Further yet is a 
dream of azure peaks. Here there is neither sowing 
nor reaping; the caiion is too narrow, the soil too 
thin. But Nature is at work in her own way. From 
the bare brown arms of the cacti finsrers white and 
scarlet and golden point to the sunlit sky, and here 
and there from the stern face of the precipice the 
crimson blossom of some unknown flower bends a 
bright head toward me ; on either side of the rocky 
path by which we have climbed the steep ascent 
cJnotes lay their gray-helmeted brows in the sand, 
or shoot triumphant spears of snowy white hung 
with glistening bells high above the hand of the 
rare wayfarer. 

There is a solemnity in the grandeur of this iso- 
lated spot which finds no response in the loud-voiced 
campers who later find their wav hither, attracted 
by the canon's well-known springs. The sun- 
warmed yet keen wind w^hispers mysteriously in 
the stunted juniper trees, rustles through the dry 
grass ; otherwise there is not a sound. The inhabit- 
ed valley is so far away that, seen through its jagged 
frame of rocks, we forget that we ever lived there 
or ever thither can return. Sand raised by the 
breeze becomes the smoke of vessels on an unknown 
sea ; the silver thread of the Rio Grande a calm be- 
twixt drifting winds; a sparse scattering- of dim 
white houses a fleet of white-winged ships. We are 
afloat upon a nameless ocean, and know not whence 
we come or whither we sail. 

Over the knees of the mountains rolls the "bald 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 103 

prairie" of the high ranges, but from Spring until 
Fall this term is a misnomer. Miles on miles, acres 
on acres, of gay flowers, painted every tint the brush 
of Nature can produce, nod in the mountain wind, 
and spread a brave carpet beneath the passing hors- 
es' feet. From whence the tiny roots of these flower- 
ets draw their life-giving moisture no man knows. 
At this height above the valley, and on the western 
slope of the range, few trees are found. But the 
flowers we have with us all the same long before 
the summer storms arrive to submerge them in bil- 
lows of verdure. Our Arid Belt affords an endless 
variety of surprises, and in all portions of it can 
change from desert to oasis and back again with 
unexampled abruptness. 

Amongst the botanical curiosities the chiote, to 
which allusion has been made, must surely be rec- 
koned. From its spiny leaves the Mexican obtains 
the tough twine with which he binds his shocks of 
corn ; and he who desires to wash can find in the roots 
of the Amole soap galore. In more recent davs suc- 
cessful experiments have been made with Soap 
Weed, chopped by machinery for cattle feed. Its 
near kinsfolk the Spanish Dagger and the Bear 
Grass are also found equally valuable when proper- 
ly prepared. All the way across the high ranges, or 
along the lonely mesa, men set fire to the great 
torches of the chiote to light them on their home- 
ward way, and morning dawns upon many a charred 
and tottering giant. 

A business man from an eastern city visits our 
country from time to time, and when he does so 



104 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

takes his day off in a manner unique — for a bus- 
iness man. He drives his car into the desert unpro- 
vided either with food or drink, thus proving that 
desert-craft is not confined to Indians, Mexicans or 
the Western born and bred. Once he invited me 
to accompany him and only a piece of ill luck inter- 
fered to prevent. It would have been a day replete 
with interest and eniovment for the desert-lover! 
He gets his drink from the water-storing cactus, 
which puts out its green shoots every spring and is 
said to hold moisture at least twenty years. For 
fruit he seeks various desert plants familiar to him, 
one of which is said to bear a kind of bread. 

Then there is the creosote plant, one of Nature's 
many free medicines to those unlearned in books. 
Should the old Indian squaw be crippled with rheu- 
matism, her friends die a deep hole in the ground, 
and heating rocks place them within it. Then they 
gather the leaves of the creosote plant and strew 
them on the stones. Upon these they pour cold 
water, and picking up the squaw they wrap her in 
blankets and place her in a chair over the steam. 
There they leave her until she is cooked and cured. 
Such is the simple economic vapor-bath devised by 
the sage and ignorant Indian — the ignorant Indian 
who years and years ago recognized the virtues of 
massage, and so well handed down his knowledge 
that even to this day many a Mexican woman raised 
in a jacal can so handle and manipulate a sick person 
that the results equal those produced by some high- 
priced masseuse. 

Amongst other singular growths of this region 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 105 

we find the loco-weed and sleepy-grass. The loco- 
weed has a pinnate leaf, sweetish to the taste, and 
remains green all the year round. Some persons 
think that the crackly pods adhering to it contain 
the subtle poison, but for this statement I am not 
answerable. At all events, if eaten, it has a peculiar 
effect on man and beast — so much so that in our 
section if anyone "acts queer" it is immediately af- 
firmed that he or she is "loco'd." Horses are par- 
tial to this plant, and if allowed to get to it, lose 
their reason and sometimes their lives. I do not 
mean that they necessarily become incurable luna- 
tics, but both time and trouble must be employed 
to cure them. Many and often ludicrous, are the 
adventures of mountain travelers with "loco'd" 
steeds. 

"What's the trouble with vour horses?" enquires 
one passing teamster of another, struggling with 
a refractory team. 

"Oh, they're plumb crazy ! Ate some loco-weed on 
the range in the night." 

"Tie them up and feed them ^rain and wait till 
they come round," is the advice of the mountain 
wiseacre. 

"Stop beatin' that team!" he shouts to another 
exasperated driver, "that ain't no manner of use. 
Them horses has been eatin' Sleepy-Grass, and ain't 
a-goin' to budge till so be as they get ready." 

Which saying of the sage is true enough. Round 
and round as if on a pivot they go under the lash of 
the whip, their forefeet planted deep in the ground 
and only their hind feet revolving. They are in 



106 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

truth sound asleep, and will continue to sleep for 
twenty-four hours, possibly even for three days, or 
quite possibly expire. The god of horses alone 
knows. So their owner ties them ud beneath a tree 
and goes to sleep himself in the shade of another — 
if there be any trees. 

But perhaps of all the curiosities within reach, 
the White Sands are among the most beautiful as 
well as singular. Imagine scaling a mountain in the 
Arid Belt, wherein lakes and rivers of any impor- 
tance — here we pause to bow an apology to the 
Rio Grande and to the immense lake at this date 
holding storage water above the Dam — are scarce, 
and beholding against the cloudless blue of the hor- 
izon a line of silver breakers running beneath a fine 
head-wind. These foaming waves are in truth a 
vast and glittering bed of gypsum, resembling on a 
nearer approach some mountain region, broken into 
deep gorges and canons of indescribable beauty and 
variety and clothed in eternal snows. Nearer yet, 
and the snow resolves itself into sand sparkling 
like crystal in the sunlight. The extent of this gyp- 
sum bed is variously stated, but the "Mountains" 
are never more than twenty-five feet in height, 
though wearing the air of mountains just the same. 
The gypsum is said by some to measure sixty by 
twenty miles, by others much less. This discrepancy 
in statement is owing partly to the exclusion of one 
hundred miles of old lake bed adjoining the sand 
hills, the surface of which is gemmed with crystals 
of great size and beauty. The desert wind keeps 
the sand in such constant motion that nothing grows 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 107 

within its radius, though about its edge trees and 
plants thrive in the soil which, strange to say, is 
always moist. Experiments made with this strange 
sand prove it to be a wonderful fertilizer, and it is 
also of value for glass making and plastering. In- 
dividuals have long used it, but only lately has its 
serious exploitation been attempted. 

During and after the rainy season, or much 
earlier in irrigated corners, our own Valley is alight 
with flowers. In regard to the dozen or more of 
garden flowers growing wild but a single writer* 
has alluded to them. The pink lantana is just one 
of several varieties swarming in fence corners. As 
for genuine wild flowers, an eastern visitor gathered 
of yellow ones alone, and that long ere the rainy 
season, twenty-one varieties, though of course many 
were what we ranching folk designate as weeds; 
for a rich land favors weeds, and the gorgeous sun- 
flower is in some ways the most noxious of all. As 
we drive along we note entire regiments of these 
troublesome fellows, whose faces, when the summer 
breeze blows them backward, resemble nothing so 
much as round-headed and bald old men, with fly- 
ing fringes of hair and cherubic smiles. My primal 
raptures over the artistic effect of golden sunflowers 
upon a background of blue mountains soon gave 
way before the practical ranchwoman's struggle 
with the fittest that survive ; and sometimes it looked 
as though I were decidedly not the fittest. Sun- 
flower enthusiasm passed as swiftly as mocking bird 
enthusiasm is apt to do. One morning a lady at our 
health resort arrived at the breakfast table in ecstasy. 
*H. O. Ladd. 



108 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



"Oh!" she ejaculated, ''I have been sitting at my 
window for hours Hstening to those beautiful, 
beautiful birds ! What a joy they are !" 

Some one responded courteously, but a covert 
smile was noticeable here and there. The next 
morning it was a slightly plaintive and jaded lady 
who seated herself at the table. 

'*Do mockingbirds sing all night, every night?" 

"Not quite all night, but spring is here, you know, 
and spring is the birds' musical season." 

By the third morning the eastern visitor was al- 
most in tears, pleading with her host that he must, 
could and should shoot the pests; which he en- 
deavored to do ; but what were two or three among 
so many? 

Thus did I conduct myself on the subject of sun- 
flowers. 

And sunflowers are not invariably weeds and in- 
deed sometimes find place in silos. Cultivated in 
highbred Russian variety for highbred Minorca 
fowls they are once more things of beauty ; also of 
utility. Nevertheless hens pick the seeds from the 
ground in their most finnicky, feminine manner, 
drop them with an air of elegant disgust, squawk 
as only silly hens can, and finally have to be starved 
into partaking of the unwelcome fare, the seed of 
the Russian sunflower being warranted to produce 
that sheen of feathers approved by poultry judges. 
But a few weeks of fussing with opinions of hen- 
ladies was too much for this henwoman, especially 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 109 

as growing alfalfa produced the same results, only 
better. 

Sunflowers? Stand just once with me some early- 
June morning at the head of a long, five deep row 
of Russian sunflowers, all with radiant faces turned 
eastward. The gold-flecked vista closes in a wealth 
of green — the heavy, rounded masses of the umbrel- 
la tree, the airy feathers of the tree of paradise — 
birds, scarlet flames and scimitars of blue, or once 
in a while a yellow flaxbird, leap and dart hither 
and thither. And beyond and above all is the 
azure — ^the unutterable, unpaintable azure — of 
southern sky and mountain. 

Have we no soft loveliness, no depth of color in 
the Arid Belt? 

On first landing in the Valley I was warned that 
flowers, garden flowers, ''do not do well in this coun- 
try." Why not? quoth I to myself — the same note 
of interrogation as when informed that thorough- 
bred chickens would not pay. They paid me 40%. 
But that little tale can wait. 

In the day ere water was lavishly bestowed one 
had to take trouble to ensure a blooming garden. 
Soil and climate are peculiarly favorable, especially 
to roses who, as everyone knows, delight in rich 
land. But right here we bump against that ancient 
and untruthful adage about genius and trouble. I 
am no genius; therefore it behooves me to take 
trouble. A couple of my acquaintances possessed of 
flower-genius labor little and are rewarded beyond 
their deserts by the spendid floral displays for which 
I have to toil, yet of which I am so proud, not to 



no THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

say vain. In later days the s^ardens of the valley 
improve, yet still the eye perceives lack of intimate 
knowled^^e reg-ardin^ flower habits and fancies, the 
spots they love best and so forth. The pioneer 
spirit yet lingers — that spirit which deems thought 
and care for mere sweetness and light ''not worth 
while." 

I believe that we should have more winter bloom- 
inq^ flowers if we did not cease watering with the 
first frost. I have kept tender annuals blooming 
all through the cold season, frosty nights and sunny 
days, by packing barnyard soil around their roots 
and supplying them with water. Violets, verbenas, 
sweet alyssum and carnations, all in sheltered spots 
of course, often do well, and T once had scarlet sage, 
very scarlet, and ricinus stately and red, until after 
the New Year. 

Every Fall the numerous rose bushes in my ,gar- 
den are banked with soil dug" up in the horse and 
cow corrals. One year Jesuscita insisted that Ri- 
cardo must cut them all down to within two feet of 
the g-round. Aghast and trembling I looked on, 
coming near to shouting Bloody Murder ! But the 
following Spring brought a glorious mass of color 
to my door, each separate rose larger than ever be- 
fore. So much for the Mexican method of horti- 
culture. 

During my Tenderfoot days another, yet more 
alarming event, confronted me. The garden was to 
be irrigated, and when the brown waters rushed in 
a flood through the break in the ditch and spread 
madly over big and little indiscriminately, I ad- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 111 

journed to my house to mourn alone. It was even- 
ing, and when morning dawned upon my woe, be- 
hold there was no woe! The floods had sunk into 
the earth and from tall lilac bush to tiny seedling 
all alike had burst forth into a paean of praise. The 
little creatures were rushing heavenward, the big 
creatures tossing flowers on high and revealing 
round fat buds invisible until now. All was well 
with the garden ! 

One cannot repeat too often that ours is no tropi- 
cal climate and that citrus fruits do not grow in the 
Valley. Also that at an altitude of 4,000 feet sen- 
sible winter clothing, nay even furs, are accept- 
able. 

Having referred to the absurd notion that ''flow- 
ers do not do well in this climate," further mention 
of another absurdity will not be out of place. 

For several years I was the sole poultry expert 
in this whole region, my birds being sold in other 
states and winning Blue Ribbons everywhere. When 
a Poultry Association was formed in the city the 
first subject advertised for discussion was ''The 
diseases peculiar to this climate." Though no long- 
er in the business, for reasons unconnected with 
these jottings, such an announcement was more 
than I could bear, so seizing pen and pad I wrote as 
follows to one of the papers : 

"There are no diseases peculiar to this climate 
other than those induced by the laziness, neglect, 
lack of intelligence and cleanliness of the henman 
and henwoman." 

(Signed) An Old Henwoman. 



112 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

To the appeals that the old Henwoman would rise 
to explain no reply was vouchsafed. For if there 
is any greater waste of time than bestowing advice 
on "the general," I do not know it. 



CHAPTER IX 
NOXIOUS AND OTHER BEASTS 

Noxious beasts are not numerous, venomous 
ones rare. In former days the mosquito was heard 
only when the river waxed riotous and water lin- 
gered long- in the acequias, but with an abundance 
of water mosquitoes and other pests have come to 
stay. Snakes are common enough, but though they 
writhe and hiss and stand up on their hinder parts 
and give us bad dreams, they are for the most part 
harmless if hot tempered. The big brownery-green- 
ery snakes are fine mousers, and as mice of the fat 
thriving sort figure among our noxious beasts, I 
allowed myself to be persuaded into accommodating 
one in my storeroom. Some persons might have 
found both instruction and amusement in the as- 
sociation. I did neither. I endured. 

A combine formed by Juan and Ricardo resulted 
in this snake boarder. When winter and the house- 
mouse season came along together I was glad that 
I had yielded, yet my summer tenant was a trial. 
The store-room's adobe walls were punctured with 
mouse holes, and many a time as I shood shuddering 
on the step, skirts gathered around me, I perceived 
a writhing tail protruding from a hole, or maybe 
a dangling horror overhead, a mouse gripped in its 
fangs. But in all fairness it must be acknowledged 
that no cat ever born can compete with a guaranteed 



114 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

mouse snake, and tryino^ as was his companion- 
ship I was conscious of a sneaking satisfaction 
when he (or another — most snakes look ahke to 
me) eng-aged a lodging under my roof the following 
summer. But satisfaction was shortlived. One 
evening I opened the door to behold him, as I be- 
lieved, extended across the grain bin. 

''O, come, Ricardo!" I exclaimed. "Push that 
thing out of my way!" 

"He won't hurt you, Senora." 

Nevertheless I gave place to the more valiant 
Ricardo. In another moment he was shouting ex- 
citedly to the senora to bring the hoe that this was 
not our culebra but una ciilehra muy mala. Mean- 
time he had seized a rake close to the door. Personal- 
ly I should have preferred a hurried exit, but that 
being hardly fair play T ran for the hoe and ven- 
tured into the heart of the fray. 

Never have I seen a snake fight as that one 
fought. But I draw a veil over the bloody scene. 
Suffice it to say that my part was to hold the furious 
monster as best I could with the rake, Ricardo striv- 
ing to beat down the striking head with its forked 
tongue. At last it was over, and the boy tossed the 
loathly body out on the grass — not to die until sun- 
set, however, according to tradition. 

"That snake has a nest somewhere," he cried, 
"and we must find it." 

He drew the rake across the grass, then hurried- 
ly made for the pump, overturned the water tub, and 
away scurried wriggling nightmares in every direc- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 115 

tion. For me, I had had enough and done my full 
duty. And Ricardo was young and active. 

In many 3^ears spent in New Mexico this was the 
second — and last — poisonous snake of which I had 
ocular proof. But as climatic conditions seem to 
revolve in circles, so apparently do snakes, as this 
brand of vicious reptile re-appeared for a time 
seasons later. 

Lizards and horned toads abound. The latter 
are amusing fellows, and enjoy having their backs 
scratched with a stick, but if too rudely accosted 
are past masters in the art of simulating death. They 
are also useful in reducing insect pests and in later 
years abide under the protection of the law. The 
tarantula, on the contrary, is a terrific beast. Cer- 
tain learned professors, however, insist that neither 
the bite of tarantula nor the disgusting feet of centi- 
pedes are dangerous. That is as it may be. No 
Texan could be found to conform to this degree, 
but then it is acknowledged that the Texan species 
of reptiles and insects are more venomous than 
those of New Mexico. A rattlesnake I have never 
encountered, although until recently when some 
kind of epidemic decimated their ranks rattler 
stories in abundance trickled down to us from their 
mountain home. The hunter bewails this decrease 
in the snake population, as to him it means financial 
loss, but the cowboy no doubt is glad that the new 
hair rope encircling his lowly couch is no longer ab- 
solutely indispensable. For he who sleeps within 
the charmed circle of a new hair rope sleeps se- 
curely. For several nights I slumbered thus, the 



116 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

rope arranged by Juan for my reassurance. A 
snake had dared to show himself in my house during 
the day, and though innocuous he was a snake just 
the same. 

Whip-snakes, which an excited fancy measures 
by the mile rather than by the foot, trail across the 
landscape with a velocity truly appalling. They also 
are harmless, unless the Mexican legend that they 
milk cows is to be counted against them. At the 
same time when Juan called on me once to help him 
corner one, I retreated into the house. Juan's 
young daughter flew to his assistance, and her sly 
smiles at the sefiora who was afraid worried me no 
whit. 

And while on the subject of revolting creatures, 
bats must not be omitted. Instead of being lucrative 
assets, as in their own caves, they are in our dwel- 
lings natural enemies. After the wood-peckers 
have drilled holes in the mud w-alls then enters in 
the bat and makes night hideous and sleepless. The 
ceilings of old houses are made of canvas stretched 
tight and whitewashed or painted, so the bat swoop- 
ing in and out between roof and canvas makes of 
night one mad, pvolonged orgie. Then with daylight 
comes Ricardo and daubs wet clay over the holes, 
and repose is sought in some remote chamber until 
the unwelcome visitor is dead and dry — a brief 
process in this climate. One novel and successful 
remedy for the bat nuisance is worth relating. 

At our health resort on a summer evening we 
were discussing this nuisance. The healthseekers 
had fled to their Eastern homes, cursing the bats 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 117 

both loud and deep. Suddenly the head of the house 
hurried away, returning with a large rat trap. As 
we have few rats in our country the existence of a 
rat trap was somewhat of a puzzle, but we had no 
time to worry over so small a matter. With the 
enthusiastic assistance of two young sons he affixed 
the contraption to the bat hole in the wall, and we 
adjourned for supper — a meal abbreviated by the 
excited shouts of the boys. Their father scaled the 
ladder, shoved down the door of the trap next the 
wall and descended with caution — ^s well he might, 
for in that trap were one hundred and fifty bats ! 
To say that the disgusting pests were inconvenient- 
ly crowded is to say nothing. Now what were we 
to do with our prisoners ? Oh, that's easy, was the 
cry — sulphur and a sack ! Sulphur and a sack were 
tried exhaustively, and at the end of an hour or 
more the creatures were still hopping up and down 
in as lively a manner as close quarters would admit 
of. The evening slipped away in futile endeavor. 
At last by some lucky chance the acequia filled up, 
and total immersion made an end of our troubles 
and those of the bats. 

Nevertheless bats have their uses. At intervals 
in both mountain and valley occur caves of all 
depths, sizes and formation, a few of which remain 
impenetrable mysteries alike to antiquarian and 
geologist. Through some one may walk as through 
a series of "banquet halls deserted," others are mere 
holes in the ground whose depths no man has 
plumbed. But about the bat caves there is no 
mystery; they are productive only of filthy lucre. 



118 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

True, they are most cunningly concealed, have been 
inhabited for centuries and are found only by ac- 
cident. To anyone versed in fertilizer lore bat 
guano is a word to conjure with, and this despite 
the fact that an encyclopedia of international repu- 
tation informs its readers that "bat guano is not 
commercially valuable." A singular piece of infor- 
mation in truth! Having owned a small orange 
grove in California simultaneously with a New 
Mexican ranch I can understand the difference with 
which the New IMexican regards the discovery of a 
bat cave in his vicinity (unless it has been his good 
luck to have discovered it himself) as compared with 
the excited interest of the Californian. The soil of 
California requires perpetual enrichment, whereas 
that of New Mexico is — or rather in my ranching 
days was — sufficient unto itself. Three bat caves 
have been found in our vicinity, one a mile long, 
and thousands of tons of guano almost worth their 
weight in gold shipped to the orange growers. Thus 
in one night, so to speak, a lucky find makes of a 
plain man a millionaire. Over and above the guano 
the caves contain masses of phosphatic rock — the 
remains of bat bodies, bones and all — which also 
is of great value. A remarkable feature in connec- 
tion with the opening up of the largest cave was 
that the bats were not driven away by the workmen, 
and although the entire front of their dwelling was 
torn down they continued to pass in and out through 
the narrow slits as of old. 

And speaking of caves other than bat caves — 
just across the Texan border, in which State curious 



TH E DESERT AND THE ROSE 119 

rock formations only belong- arbitrarily, there is 
a collection of caverns in or between which are 
deep hollows filled in the rainy season with water. 
An ardent cactus collector was the first person to 
tell me of the Tanks. She and her son had camped 
there often, and she told me that grass and trees 
grow around the edges of these pools, and that the 
caves are in some instances labyrinthine and the 
walls covered with Indian picture writing and in- 
scriptions left by pioneers and soldiers of the past, 
but that even at the date of her visits many years 
ago city barbarians were already doing their best 
to deface historic relics they are too ignorant to 
value. The overland stages mentioned in an earlier 
chapter crossed the Rio Grande some five miles 
north of my ranch and went on to the Tanks to ob- 
tain water and probably fresh horses, the grazing 
being good there; and just because of the water and 
the grazing many a struggle with Indians took place 
at that point. It seems a pity that our country can- 
not take care of its comparatively few historic 
spots, and, yet worse, destroy for commercial rea- 
sons interesting and picturesque corners of our 
cities, which have for generations attracted trav- 
elers. A short-sighted policy indeed, considering 
how little of the historic and artistic our cities have 
to bestow ! 

In view of the enormous size of New Mexico and 
its as yet imperfectly settled condition, its criminal 
record is not startling. 

'Tf there were more rain in this country there 



120 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

would be more murders," quoth a sheriff to me 
once. 

"How so?" 

''Because in this arid territory, with its wide ex- 
panse of desert, criminals are forced to return to 
civilization for water. More water holes, more 
crime! See?" 

Gophers are a plague throughout the southwest. 
Their tunnels are disastrous in orchards and al- 
falfa, and under old adobe houses unprotected by 
cement foundations. Bravo, the loyal guard dog of 
early ranching years, a Mexican with the courage 
of his opinions, was an expert on the gopher situa- 
tion and a flood inspired him with joyous anticipa- 
tions. When the rising tide drives the animals out 
of their holes then arrives Bravo's hour. Silent 
and zealous he speeds from hole to hole, and with 
one snap of his strong white teeth breaks the back 
of the emerging rodent. His successor, Hilda, the 
huge St. Bernard, plays the craven before the for- 
midable tusks of the gopher. Not so little Betsinda. 
She is a true sport. The report of a gun sends her 
into ecstasies, and the privilege of accompanying 
a hunter is her idea of heaven. Cortes, on the con- 
trary, goes into retreat if I even handle a revolver 
in his presence. Betsinda retrieves with neatness 
and despatch until her plump little body and short 
legs give out. She can crack a gopher's back with 
a dexterity equal to that of Bravo himself. 

One irrigating day Juan brings a slightly dis- 
abled gopher into the garden. Betsinda hustles off 
the porch in a hurry. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 121 



"Now," says Juan, "watch the perrita!" 

Having- sized up her enemy she has her young 
son, Montezuma, out on the porch in a jiffy. 

"Attention!" she cries. 

Then quick as a cat she is behind the foe, and in 
another second his spine is broken and he is down 
and out. 

"I told you she knew the trick!" exclaims Juan 
triumphantly. 

And Betsinda, addressing the eager and curious 
pupDV in her own language, remarks, 

"There! That's the'way to do it. And don't you 
f or.get it !" 

And Monte did not forget. A year or so later, 
when fate had separated the three little dogs, Juan 
once more brought a gopher to the porch with a 
view of training Hilda in the art of killing. But 
again she showed the white feather. We were pay- 
ing no heed to Monte, for as he took no interest in 
mousing or any of the sports in which his mother 
had excelled we counted him out of the game. Sud- 
denly he slipped under Hilda's hesitating head and 
in a flash had the gopher by the back. In his ardor, 
however, he had missed the right spot by a fraction 
of an inch and a furious battle was on. Up and 
down the path it raged, the gopher snapping at the 
little dog with some effect, Monte's grip being firm 
enough but too near the tail, until Juan, watching 
for a favorable opening, put an end to the gopher 
with his every ready hoe. 

"Gopher bite not good!" he asserted solemnly. 
"Monte miiy chiqiiito! carry him in the house, 



122 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

Senora, wash the bites and cover them with carbo- 
lated vaseHne." 

Though indomitable as a warrior and, like his 
father, swift to resent the meddling ways of dogs 
ten times his size, Monte never tackled a gopher 
again. 

And while on the subject of gophers, T wonder 
where and how the notion that Alexicans are in- 
different marksmen originated? The men who 
worked on my ranch were all good shots. Crossing 
the orchard on business bent I perceived one morn- 
ing a mother gopher and three young ones sitting 
up on the edge of their hole. To Juan I flew with 
my news. Down went his hoe, into the house he 
hied him for the loaded shotgun, and in faster time 
than it takes to relate he had let fly with both barrels 
and four gopher corpses fell back into their home. 

Then there is the roadrunner, who is far from 
being a pest, and devours mice and snakes and all 
such superfluous vermin. Not only so, but he is a 
beautiful and graceful bird, and many a time I 
have reined in my horse to watch him skim along 
the trail, leaping or running, his short wings held 
close to his slender body and high crest erect. Rat- 
tlers are a favorite item on his bill of fare, and he 
goes to infinite trouble to obtain them. It is said 
that on finding a sleeping snake he will softly build 
a fence of sharp thorns around his prey. The snake 
on awakening is excusably enraged and strikes and 
beats himself against the thorns until exhausted, 
when the roadrunner kills and eats him at his lei- 
sure. Having once been on fairly intimate terms 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 123 

with this quaint and clever bird, I lend an open ear 
to the yarn vouched for, as it is, by credible eye- 
witnesses. 

Eastern magazines inform us that the roadrunner 
is hopelessly unsociable and will not come within 
hailing distance of a human being. I can personally 
refute this as a libel. Early one winter a roadrun- 
ner leaped over my fence into the flower garden, and 
remained there until spring, going in and out as it 
suited his good pleasure. Neither I nor the dogs 
seemed to annoy him. On the contrary, I some- 
times sat down on the edge of the porch and waited 
for him. Presently from the cover of the bushes 
he would come leaping and bounding, approaching 
gradually nearer and nearer until he looked me 
square in the eye. Then for a few seconds he 
danced — literally danced — opening and closing his 
wings and executing movements so graceful and en- 
chanting that I regretted the close of the per- 
formance and his exit from the scene. At night I 
often put out chopped meat and presume he ate it. 
When springtime came he brought a mate to share 
his home, but apparently it was too cultured for her 
taste, for the pair disappeared. 



CHAPTER X 
DOGS 

He was very happy but he missed the Httle dog. He 
had everything that a man can possibly want in this 
world but a dog. . . . There are moments in every 
man's life when no human being can help him, divert 
him, and stimulate him, and he needs the oldest and 
most faithful friend that he has in the world. 

Goiiverncur Morris. 

It may at once be seen that the reader who cares 
nothing- for animals would do well to skip this, and 
the following chapter. 

Turn now, the hot day waning, from the moun- 
tains, and gaze from the back of my brown house 
athwart the long shadows of the levels. Why is the 
landscape so sorrowful? Peace stepping quietly 
should come as an oft-bidden, long delaying guest 
across these tranquil meadows. One beyond the 
other they spread, a carpet of varied greens — the 
ever fresh greens of our midsummer — the gay 
shimmer of barley, verdurous weeds turning the 
wheat stubble into a pageant, alfalfa purpling here 
and there to another blooming, the emerald green of 
cottonwoods and of springing crops of different 
sorts. The eye wanders on and on to the river's 
bank marked by wavering lines of woods, on and 
on to where the still and solemn mesa leans upon 
the deep burned sky. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 125 

Why is this landscape so sorrowful? 

Close at hand, against the western glow, moves 
sedately the profile of Evangelista, who eschews 
mental effort *and leads the simple life in large let- 
ters. Yet her masque is eloquent of tragedy historic 
and prehistoric, of interminable desert marches, of 
flight and capture, of murder and outrage. 
Evangelista cares for none of these things. That 
her inherited aspect provides the Senora with food 
for thought would astound her. 

TO THE UNKNOWN DEAD 

Thus is the stage set for peace, yet in past and 
present very human emotions trail their length 
along, and just now swell the breasts of the two 
little dogs seated on either side of me on the porch 
step. They also possess a past wrapped in some 
mystery. 

On a cloth spread at my feet a pair of wee pups, 
oft'spring of said dogs, make merry, regardless of 
the raging jealousy of one parent and the agoniz- 
ing anxiety of the other. Each pup is tiny enough 
to sit in the palm of the hand, and to sit up comes 
by right of birth to the true bred Chihuahua. There- 
fore these little chaps are as erect upon their hinder- 
ends as tenderness of age permits, and they are 
cuffing one another's ears with the like permissible 
vigor, emitting small fiendish sounds intended to 
be growls of wrath and falling backward after each 
buffet given and received. Betsinda, on my right, 
trembles, and seeks my countenance for reassurance 
with her immense dark gaze. Not so Cortes. His 



126 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

emotions are of a different order, though agitating 
in equal measure his finely ruffled shirt bosom. 
Never does he bend his own sombre gaze upon those 
contemptible pups but surveys the scenery with an 
air of detachment, or reaches forth one long- 
fingered, long-clawed — hand, I w^as about to say, 
so unlike paws are the curving extremities of his 
breed — and gently presses my cheek as if to turn 
my face too from the silly spectacle. 

''Don't pay so much attention to those wretched 
brats!" he says. "They're not worth it. Look at 
me instead!" 

Admonition failing, he steps gingerly into my 
lap — he who despises laps ! — but still in vain. I pull 
his silken ears and smile into his appealing eyes. 
But this is beside the question; neither is he in a 
smiling mood. Haughtily he withdraws to the 
further end of the step, and with a profound sigh — 
for sighing is his trump card — presents a rear view 
of himself to the maddening imps. Sincere as is 
his devotion to Betsey, and though courageous out- 
side the domestic circle, he is afraid of her and so 
refrains from more open remonstrance. It may be 
that he hates the pups more than is seemly because 
when together we visited Betsinda at the home of 
her birth and he ventured on tiptoe to peep into the 
basket containing her and the pups, she flew at him 
and chased him from the scene. 

At last we are all quiet in our several ways. Their 
little bodies aw^eary of this great world Montezuma 
and his sister fall limply to sleep, but not before 
the former, who is particularly diminutive, has 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 127 

avenged himself for the falls to which he has been 
subjected. Wobbling to his feet he seizes Marina 
by the throat and iDy the fury of his onslaught 
throws her and stands snarling horribly over her 
prostrate form. Then I gather both exhausted war- 
riors into my lap and Betsinda, after giving each a 
brisk going-over with a pink tongue, allows them 
to slumber undisturbed. Monte receives the larger 
share of all her attentions, perhaps because he is 
so little, and the stronger pup is often thrust away. 
Now she too subsides, and Cortes, not to be out- 
done but unwilling to stoop, pushes himself in be- 
hind me and abandons himself to the great consoler. 
As before mentioned he does not like laps and only 
resorts to them when he desires to be nearer than 
any other dog to the object of his devotion. Should 
he lie down at a distance he keeps a watchful eye, 
nevertheless, on the beloved's every movement, 
ready to laugh in the dog manner or wag his tail 
at the slightest encouragement. A sneeze brings 
him with a bound to investigate or sympathize — in 
short, his attentions are embarrassing. Such 
anxious supervision of the scant few who are to him 
the elect occasionally provokes treachery. A cal- 
ler approved by Cortes produces a handkerchief 
and makes believe to weep into it. In a second the 
little fellow is on the knees of the mock mourner, 
pulling with soft, claw-sheathed paws the handker- 
chief from the face, and on perceiving the smile 
awaiting him drops his head with a satisfied sigh 
on his betrayer's shoulder. Thus is the trusting 
heart deceived. 



128 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

From the abstemious viewpoint of Cortes, or 
Chappie as he is often called for short, Betsinda is 
disgustingly greedy, and if separate dishes are not 
provided for the couple he will stalk away dinner- 
less. He should pause to consider that not the most 
delectable morsel will tempt even the more socially 
gifted Betsey to a stranger's hand unless that 
stranger is attractive to her personally. She may 
sidle and coquette, but the candy or cake are not 
for her. 

But it is Cortes who looks after a certain side of 
the family deportment. The morning train may not 
pass ungreeted. If the family are backward he 
rounds them up, including for this ceremony the 
gigantic Hilda, trotting between them and the gate, 
howling tentatively, imtil all are in place and the 
train is in sight. Never for him does the far oflf 
whistle sound in vain ! Then, his band now in full 
swing, a chorus of canine melody startles the un- 
accustomed ear. At the place where he was born 
I have many times beheld him execute a more re- 
markable feat — that of assembling some score of 
small dogs and inducing them to take part in the 
family concert, not once but often, as trains pass 
continually. 

And while alluding to so many little dogs of one 
breed, an observer cannot fail to be struck with a 
peculiarity common to all Chihuahuas even half 
worthy of the name — that of their extreme w^ari- 
ness. For instance, the little follows assemble at the 
summons of their owner to be inspected by a pur- 
chaser. They spread themselves in a semicircle, 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 129 

submissive as always to the handling of their 
owner. But mark the difference when the customer 
approaches ! Not that they snap, or run rudely 
away — oh, no! A certain degree of courtesy is 
unfailingly maintained. A hand is extended to, let 
us say^ the father of Cortes, who promptly executes 
a graceful sidestep and the admiring stranger 
grasps empty air. Again and again this manoeuvre 
is repeated. In elusiveness the Chihuahua is not 
to be excelled. "Dogs love me!" exclaims the 
grieved visitor. "What is the trouble?" 

The "trouble" is that the legend of the Chihuahua 
dog's origin bears truth on its very face. 

Years ago a Frenchman in the city of Chihuahua 
experimented with a small unpedigreed terrier and 
a prairie dog. Pleased with the result the French- 
man continued on the same lines, finally evolving 
the Chihuahua Dog. In support of this story are 
several incontrovertible facts. The wild strain in 
the blood is not to be denied, showing itself not 
merely in the shyness born of the wild but in quali- 
ties that partake of the psychic and to be mentioned 
later. A friend who kept a pair of prairie dogs for 
pets, and to whom my touch-me-not dogs took an 
imm.ediate fancy, pointed out Monte's predilection 
for curling himself up at the back of my neck as 
did his pets at home: the fact that every genuine 
Chihuahua sits up by nature but with the fore- 
pazvs hanging straight dozvn, just as sit up his 
kinsmen on the edge of their holes, the gentle cares- 
sing ways of the two varieties of dogs — last but 
not least the crooked forepaws, abnormally long 



130 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

toes and curving claws capable of being sheathed 
like those of a cat — also needing clipping if the dog 
is kept too much in the house. In short, the Chihua- 
hua is built for a burrowing animal, even the lazy 
Betsinda digging for hours at a time if the notion 
seized her. Another and by no means negligible 
proof of ancestry is insisted on by Chihuahua 
breeders: the pups are more or less of a gamble: 
one of a litter may sport back to some ancestor of 
whom nothing is known. But litter is a misnomer ; 
the mother who presents her owner with three pups 
is rare. In these comments the imitation animal 
bought by Tenderfooters at fancy prices finds no 
place. Tiny terriers can be evolved by inbreeding 
or liquor doping, but they seldom boast a single 
truebred point or characteristic. Mexicans, or 
Americans long resident in Mexico will have none of 
these fakes, to which however, find a ready market 
owing to the increasing scarcity of the genuine Chi- 
huahua — scarcity induced, perha,ps, by unsettled 
conditions in Mexico of such long standing.* 

Montezuma was considered by competent judges 
a perfect specimen, though as he stood eight inches 
high, a trifle oversized. Dog fanciers offered big 
prices for him, and nothing but his wariness and 
my watchfulness prevented him from being stolen 
again and again. Even Cortes, not so perfect, had 
his narrow escapes, and once indeed was kidnapped 
and would have been spirited across the border had 
he not been recognized and regained by an acquain- 
tance. 

*So little is known in the Eastern States of the Chihuahua dog, 
its points, breeding and so forth that one may see even in periodicals 
of high standing quite amusing travesties of the little animal. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 131 

Monte, despite the large soft eyes of his kind, 
walked the earth with that incomparable swagger 
and style which was his by right of birth. High set 
quarters, a tail with a double kink and tightly curled 
make for style. He possessed also the other char- 
acteristics already mentioned. Furthermore the 
judges of the shorthaired Chihuahua insisted on a 
broad chest, narrow flanks, narrow jaw with a black 
roof, high domed head wide over the eyes, and ears 
capable of standing out like those of a bat but by no 
means to be fixtures in that position. It is the im- 
movable batlike ears which are among the worst 
blemishes of the ''fake" Chihuahua. Monte's per- 
fect ears excited the admiration of all connoisseurs. 
The markings of the shorthaired dog are also of 
primary importance ; they may be liver, tan or black, 
or black and tan, but they must be duly placed on 
the white body ; or the entire body may be tan, liver 
or black. The white dogs, properly marked, carry 
ofif the palm for beauty. A set of strong teeth com- 
plete the equipment deemed necessary for the wear- 
ing of the Blue Ribbon. 

These little fellows make admirable pets for chil- 
dren provided the latter do their part, and some 
of the boys who disported themselves on my ranch 
got a lot of fun out of them. They will guard 
a baby, or anything indeed left in their care al- 
most with their lives. But though courageous and 
lively, they are abnormally sensitive and will if 
roughly treated either defend themselves with their 
strong teeth, or shrink into a corner and forsake 
the ways of playfulness. Some, like Cortes, are 



132 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

born trick dogs — no teaching is required. But 
Cortes was easily offended, and when things did not 
suit him at home would depart, kicking up his hind- 
legs as he trotted with an inexplicable effect of a 
warhorse scenting the battle from afar, only with 
that double kink in his tail with which warhorses 
are unprovided. Much as he hated gadding, he pre- 
ferred on such occasions to seek the companion- 
ship of a certain healthseeker on whom he had be- 
stowed his carefully selected friendship. In this 
case his choice resulted in his own untimely death 
by chloroform; for, as has been told, this breed of 
dog is extraordinarily susceptible to tubercular in- 
fection. 

That Chihuahuas are intelligent goes without 
saying; of course every canine, or for that matter 
equine, breed produces an occasional idiot, but not 
as often as does the human race. Monte, for in- 
stance, was trained and disciplined by his parents, 
and according to unanimously expressed opinion 
they made a very neat job of it. An undisciplined 
dog is an unmitigated pest to owners, neighbors and 
guests. Yet the fascinations of Monte were so 
overpowering that even as it was he ran the risk of 
being spoiled by the adulation of outsiders, and in 
his very early years he permitted himself liberties 
which considerably startled the authors of his being. 
If by some rare chance it became necessary for me 
to reprove him, his behavior was apt to excite the 
unseemly mirth of visitors. He would make no 
reply except to revolve violently on his own axis 
and sniff, surveying his mistress with head askew 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 133 

and tail wrapped in a double knot. Having been 
told to take a seat this form of retort was not al- 
together satisfactory; yet his obedience was other- 
wise uniformly prompt. 

Between the tiny Monte and the huge Hilda ex- 
isted some secret understanding. They were pups 
together, and spent their large leisure in chasing one 
another up and down the driveway or running after 
a ball and quarreling as to whose was the right to 
bring it back to the thrower. But one unlucky day 
a monstrous paw descended on a wee back and a 
sorrowful little dog came creeping for human con- 
solation — not yelping, but crying softly after the 
manner of the breed. Never again did Monte run 
after balls with Hilda. But the strange tie was not 
broken, only grew more secretive in its manifesta- 
tions. Once I succeeded in shooting them with the 
camera during the performance of their mystic 
rites. The immense St. Bernard lay on the edge of 
the porch, her intent gaze fixed on the scrap of a 
dosf a few yards distant. Step by step, touching the 
ground as though it were redhot, his tail so tightly 
curled that it seemed surely as if it must snap in 
two, Monte slowly approached his friend. Gradual- 
ly the dogs were close enough to rub noses. This 
ceremony was no doubt intended for an expression 
of affection, but whatever it may have been, never 
was it performed before eye witnesses — that is, if 
either dog was aware of a witness. 

Passing allusion has been made to the psychic 
qualities of the breed — possibly an inheritance from 
the wild. Little Betsinda, for instance, who during 



134 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

my brief absence from home was sojourning with 
the adoring children of whom I have spoken, took 
it into her head one early dawn that I had returned, 
and forsaking her puppies came back to the ranch 
literally through bush and briar — Betsinda who nev- 
er walked abroad ! — to whine softly at my door, be- 
hind which I actually w^as. How did she know that 
a night train had brought me home ? Cortes was an 
infallible prophet of evil ; his actions warned us of 
certain conditions in the household which no human 
power could foretell, and he was never mistaken. 
When he deviated from his customary habits and 
pursued an altered course, we learned in time to 
accept his warning. Both he and Monte, however, 
were subject to panics for which no cause, so far as 
we could discover, existed. Flinging themselves 
upon their human protectors they clung trembling 
with beating hearts, and distended eyes glaring at 
some object invisible to our mere human vision, their 
long toes curving about our arms like the hands of 
agonized children. On one occasion Monte's panic 
lasted so long that a visiting physician administered 
an opiate, declaring that otherwise the little fellow 
would die of terror of the Unknown ! T make no at- 
tempt to explain these phenomena. 

''There must be something almost as good as hu- 
manity in some dogs" opines a sage newspaper man, 
"that women — and men too — often weep when thev 
die." 

"What's a dog, anyway!" exclaims the typical 
Far Westerner. A dog, my dear sir. or madam, has 
not uncommonly as much intelligence as you have, 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 135 

and sometimes more heart, conscience, loyalty and 
gratitude than you know anything- about! That's 
a dog. But these qualities are wasted on you — 
the most of you, that is — who trample on his feel- 
ings, despise his faithfulness, neither train nor de- 
velop him who down thro' the ages has been hon- 
ored as man's best friend, and celebrated in song 
and story. However, the dogs of war on the battle- 
fields of Europe must surely have opened the blind 
eyes of the roughest and most indifferent of mortals 
— even here in the West where animals are so ill 
considered, nay too often ill treated. Horses too 
on the battlefields — British gunners have many a 
splendid record of their courage, intelligence and 
faithfulness, and the Blue Cross hospitals, a British 
institution established early in the great war for the 
care of wounded horses, could tell much more. 

To return to Chihuahuas — their one drawback 
is that of other breeds of small dogs. In their af- 
fections they concentrate overmuch. They may in 
fact be considered as a One-Man dog. They may 
appear to be attached to some outsider, but let their 
owner leave them in that outsider's kind, nay de- 
voted, care, surrounded by a circle of admirers in 
addition, they may continue livelv and playful but 
not a day passes that does not find them at some 
hour watching from door or window, crying a little 
after the gentle manner of their breed. Months 
elapse yet this custom continues to be observed. And 
then behold one day enters their owner and a scene 
of such rapture ensues as bars description. Worse 
still, the kind friends are bidden once and forever to 



1,36 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

take a back seat, irrespective of their naturally 
injured feelings. And yet — a small black and tan 
terrier died of joy on seeing me once more after 
nearly a year of separation. The French author 
of The Story of a Too Little Dog does not exag- 
gerate when she makes him say: "My heart, large 
as the heart of a nightingale, beats and consumes 
itself with loving." Writes also a Frenchman: "Man 
has not looked for the divine spark in animals. The 
soul of a dog is not as obscure as it is believed to 
be." Of some dogs, let us say; not all dogs have 
souls. 

Speaking of the big dogs on the ranch, for in- 
stance — Peter had neither courage, heart nor soul. 
Bravo, on the contrary, had all three. Bravo, the 
Fierce One, was brought to me on the saddle of a 
Mexican with the assurance that he came of fear- 
less stock and would fight to the death. True, he 
died in the defence of my property, as Monte died 
for love of me. When I received the furry, protest- 
ing ball already named Bravo T did not realize what 
a treasure became mine. He developed into a hand- 
some mongrel, with a dash of shepherd in his make 
up but minus the latter's exasperating habit of 
senseless barking. Quiet as the neighborhood was 
tramps and pilferers were not unknown, and to 
their kind Bravo early posed as a Holy Terror. He 
could slip in under a man's stick and drive his teeth 
home so efficiently that flight was the sole resource, 
nor was he to be shaken off until the intruder was in 
the road where he belonged. He made very little 
noise but was alwavs where he was wanted. Bark- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 137 

ing- at night, except for cause, however, was the 
unpardonable sin on my ranch, and even the rather 
stupid Hilda, the lamented Bravo's successor, had 
to learn her lesson. 

About the time Bravo arrived at my home Peter, 
another Mexican pup, was brought to me, also with 
a flaming character. But Peter was from the first 
just Cur, and Bravo loathed him with loathing in- 
expressible except by violent action. As for Cortes, 
he would not even look at the creature, but tiptoed 
away with snarling lip and tight curled tail ; it was 
a case of Dignity and Impudence reversed. The 
relations between the two guard dogs were mutually 
unpleasant, even in puphood. For some hours of 
each day they were tied as part of their training, but 
the moment they were loosed they flew to battle, 
and instantaneously two wrestling fuzzy objects 
were rolling on the ground. For a time the enter- 
tainment was a harmless and amusing one, but when 
it developed into the perennial dressing of wounds 
the affair ceased to be a joke. If Peter was tied 
Bravo was too much of a gentleman to molest him ; 
not so Peter, who would spring upon his chained 
enemy — and receive a thrashing from me for his 
pains ! But when in addition to these currish man- 
ners he took to sneaking up behind my visitors and 
gripping them by an ankle, the time came when the 
ugly mongrel had to be painlessly disposed of — a 
deed performed during my temporary absence from 
home. At this point Bravo deserves further men- 
tion as a person of character. 

Peter was suitably interred far up the ranch. On 



138 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

the evening- of my homecoming some weeks later 
Bravo suddenly cut off his boisterous greetings to 
tear away acro.ss the alfalfa. While we still waited 
and speculated he came bounding back, bearing his 
sheaves with him — in the shape of the mummified 
head of his enemy, which he laid at my feet. With 
waving tail, and dancing eyes fixed alternately on 
my face and on the one-time head of Peter, he cried 
plainly enough — "Behold! What do you think of 
this?" In the end the remains of Peter had to be 
removed, for it was impossible to predict at what 
hour Bravo might not unearth portions of Peter 
and lay them at my feet — which was never agreeable 
and sometimes embarrassing 

Let us close with the story of the Indian who 
sought the Happy Hunting Grounds. He started 
on his long journey accompanied by his squaw, his 
two sons and his dog. One by one the family de- 
serted him all save the dog. At last, weary and 
footsore, the master and his four footed friend 
neared the Happy Hunting Grounds. Then the 
watchman at the gates asked : 

"Where are those who were wath you at first?" 
"The way was long. Their feet were weary." 
"Who is this that stands watching you with eyes 
that show tears they cannot shed?" 

"He who loves me best," said the Indian. 
The watchman put his hand on the head of the 
dog, who gave a joyful leap; and through the gates 
of the Happy Hunting Grounds shot both the Indian 
and his friend — into the Land where there is no 
parting and no tears. 



CHAPTER XI 
COLTS 

On glancing through these Journal scraps I can 
well see that from them the impression may be 
gathered that Valley life is destitute of social joys, 
as also unacquainted with that intensive culture of 
Amusement per se, that not-a-moment-unprovided- 
with-diversion programme, deemed by the many 
necessary to existence. This lamentable state of 
affairs does not apply to our condition. But one 
cannot be a good ranchwoman and many other kinds 
of a woman all in the same breath, and, I must also 
confess that, unless shelved (and bored) by illness, 
I have been able to occupy and even amuse myself 
sufficiently without hunting things wherewith "to 
pass away the time." In the Valley my ranch, my 
household and its human (or other) contents, the 
healthseekers and a few chosen friends made time 
appear as a rather valuable commodity. 

And there was certainly one diversion which 
never palled, and that was the training of colts. 
Mine are sent out into the world absolutely fearless, 
and every horseman knows what that means and 
how tiresome a shying horse can be. Further, no 
colt of mine has ever failed to pull true, no matter 
how trying the circumstances. Of course I was ex- 
ceedingly lucky in my helpers, first a neighbor boy 



140 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

and later Ricardo, both of whom were abnormally 
fond of horses. 

We beo:in with the mare, who receives if possible 
more kindly and rational treatment than the other 
creatures on the ranch. She must have perfect con- 
fidence in those who care for her. Prenatal influence 
is an enormous factor in the colt's disposition, and 
as all those know, or should know, who handle dumb 
beasts, occasionally asserts itself in a manner either 
startling- or funny. For instance I owned at one 
time a fine, spirited horse who was so ultra mis- 
chievous that I had reluctantly to part with him. 
An ill conditioned range horse called Jefif, retained 
solely because he was fast to buggy, was Major's 
special aversion, and there were times when we be- 
lieved he would kill the range horse if permitted. 
Anyway, even when hitched up with the mare, his 
team mate, Major had to be muzzled, not that he 
would hurt her but he loved to scare her out of her 
senses. He was so full of tricks that he could not 
wisely be driven single. He might cover several 
miles in splendid style without a jar, then suddenly 
arise on his hindlegs and fall back on the buggy 
and its occupants, which was a bit disconcerting. It 
was difficult to keep him either in shed or corral, so 
resourceful was he, and when led to water it was 
his delight to twitch ofif the Mexican's sombrero as 
he stooped to pump and throw it as far as he could. 
Strange to say no Mexican who ever worked this 
troublesome horse disliked him ; on the contrary they 
would walk grinning after missing hats or catch 
the truant without so much as a passing grouch. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 141 

Now comes in the prenatal question. The mother 
of Nina, my star colt, regarded Major with feelings 
compounded of admiration and terror. Nina's sire 
was a handsome gaited saddler of Southern pedi- 
gree, a rich dark bay. Nina turned out to be an 
ordinary sorrel, the same color as Major, and had 
not a gait to her name — was merely a good roadster 
— poor luck for a person who craved a Southern 
saddler! As Nifia developed she, who had never 
looked on Major's face, was fully his equal in clever- 
ness and in mischief too, although never combative. 
The first time she snatched off Juan's hat at the 
water tub he rushed to my window, insistent that I 
should come out and witness the repetition of Ma- 
jor's favorite trick. The Mexicans viewed this 
escapade in the light of witchcraft and continued to 
treat it with respect. It certainly was not a case 
of mimicry. Of this Nina more in its place. 

When the colt of either sex is some two weeks old 
his training begins — at least, the feminine method 
of training which has been proved good enough. He 
has already been handled and petted, and feels in us 
the same confidence that his mother does. The 
adjustable halter is produced, he runs up to my out- 
stretched hand and the halter is arranged without 
any fuss on his downy head. At this point I hand 
over the lead rope to Ricardo, acquainted as I am 
with the amazing strength of equine babies. The 
boy starts with coaxing — in vain, of course. Mr. 
Colt plants his slender forelegs firmly, the light of 
battle in his eyes; no human being shall lead him 
against his will. The boy could easily lift him in 



142 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

his arms and carry him, but todav we are not play- 
in|[^: we mean business: so does he. Furiously he 
shakes his head, and the boy squats, takin^^ a double 
hold on the rope, for were the colt to break loose 
now all would be lost. The mid.s:et sits back too, and 
for awhile it is a case of pull-devil-pull-baker, varied 
by the colt's strenuous tues on the rope. We remain 
firm, all of us. Graduallv the little fellow ceases 
his efforts to break away, and cautiouslv the boy 
p-ets to his feet and moves slowlv backward. Instant- 
ly the fijSfht is on a^ain. but the colt is weakenini?^, 
and provided he be intelligent and well bred, as are 
all my colts, and is not hampered bv distrustfulness 
on the part of his mother, in another hour or less 
we are leading^ him whither we will; but it is de- 
sirable to lead him for a few minutes daily. Then 
comes the more critical hour when he must learn to 
stand tied, first alongside the mare but soon alone. 
Two or three days should suffice for the learninsf 
of this very important lesson, but patience on the 
part of his teachers must be inexhaustible ; the hig-h- 
ly developed nervous system of the horse in com- 
bination with a tenacious memory renders pardon- 
able the repetition of this trite remark. In a few 
months we beg"in to place pieces of harness on him, 
one at a time. He has been handled so much that 
no other emotion but intense interest is evoked, even 
when the breechinq- is first adjusted. He is then 
led around until he is thorouehly accustomed to 
the feel of the harness, and until the dra^g-inor of 
the traces — purposely allowed to drae: so that any 
future disarrangement of these or any other por- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 143 

tions of the harness may not precipitate panic — 
ceases to excite even curiosity. One ironclad rule 
prevails on the ranch : the colt is never to be struck 
or scared, but neither is he to be given his head. 
Discipline is maintained. 

"How do you manage to raise such bold colts?" 
a prospective purchaser inquired of me one day, 
after driving one of mine through crowded city 
streets for the first time in its experience, and that 
without any emotion on the part of the youngster 
beyond extreme inquisitiveness. 

To which I replied in my heart, but not aloud. 
Where would have been the use? 

The next step is to make the colt bridlewise. By 
dint of coaxing and determination the bit is finally 
inserted. Once safely in place this new toy seems 
to afford amusement, judging by the gusto with 
which it is chewed. Then picking up the reins he 
is induced to walk upon his way, I going ahead at 
first to encourage his progress. Gradually he learns 
to twist and turn according to the pull upon the bit. 
Now he is ready for the crowning test. The cart, 
warranted to make no agitating noises, is brought 
out. We go to work very quietly, and soon every- 
one is prepared for the real crisis; for I own that 
the first revolution of the wheels never fails to send 
my heart into my mouth, though nothing startling 
ever occurred. The boy walks behind holding the 
reins firmly and I walk ahead. The colt takes a few 
dubious steps, looking back at the odd contraption 
he appears to be dragging but soon satisfied that 
whatever it is it must be all right, as his friends are 



144 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

so calm and confident, and in a minute or so he is 
marching along, unperturbed but decidedly interest- 
ed. 

The breaking of the first colt to harness had its 
amusing side. Two young men who made a busi- 
ness of breaking horses were kind enough to prof- 
fer their assistance and arrived on the ground with 
ropes and other paraphernalia commonly used in 
that business. To their unbounded amazement they 
beheld the above untroubled incident; further ad- 
vanced, however, as the boy and I were by that 
time seated in the cart being drawn along by a 
pleased and spirited colt, head and tail carried in 
an airified manner but otherwise "nothing doing." 
For some days, acting on the advice of an ex- 
perienced Southern horseman, the colt was held 
down to a walk, kept well up to the bit but not al- 
lowed to break, this being the Southern way of de- 
veloping a rapid w^alker; and of all things slow 
walking is the most intolerable to the Southern 
horseman, more especially if he hail from a section 
of bad roads where good time must be made yet 
fast trotting is impossible. 

Meantime my colt has been ridden barebacked to 
water many times. When Nina, the "boldest" colt 
of all, was some fifteen months old — or in other 
words "rising two" — came along the Fourth, and 
with it the boy, imploring permission to "saddle her 
up" for the first time and ride her in to town so 
that she might acquire experience with firecrackers 
and the like exciting adventures. "She won't scare 
with me!" he persisted. Having yielded somewhat 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 145 

reluctantly to his importunity the next event was 
a small crowd eager to witness the cinching up of 
the saddle. Again disappointment was the out- 
come. Nina displayed her customary curiosity but 
nothing more, and walked off, bearing boy and sad- 
dle without a tremor. When colt and rider reap- 
peared the former wore an air of pleasurable excite- 
ment ; evidently for her it had been a case of "a per- 
fect day." "Well?" I queried. The boy exclaimed 
— "Nothing doing! She just seemed to think the 
whole show was got up for her amusement. Scare? 
Not she!" 

On the other hand, and on the ranch, Niiia was 
the star entertainer. To say she was smart is to 
say little. The man who bought her sent me a 
message a year or so later that he would not take 
any money for his purchase : that this mare, raised 
and broken by a woman and a boy, was the best 
and cleverest animal he had ever owned. 

But she was irrepressible. One morning, when 
she had almost arrived at the dignity of a two-year- 
old and I was busy in my den, she spent something 
•like an hour trying to shove her soft muzzle through 
the screen of the only window accessible to her. 
Why did she act in this annoying manner ? For the 
reason that she desired to enter and play with me, 
and was mad because I was attending strictly to 
the business of the hour and not to her. At length 
with an angry snort and a wicked toss of the head 
she made off. For awhile peace reigns. Presently 
unusual sounds proceed from the end of the long 
hall running through the old house. I rush forth. 



146 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

Someone has left the back door screen open, and 
in the hall stands Nina, too absorbed with the tasty 
contents of the icebox to observe her mistress. Non- 
chalant and undismayed by novel surroundings she 
has climbed the steps and is sampling a pan of 
cream — rich Jersey cream — and not finding it to 
her liking is sneezing it over walls and floor, and 
ends by throwing the pan out of the box. While I 
still stand at gaze, uncertain how to act, she se- 
lects a cake, and finding it more to her taste begins 
to munch it contentedly, although spitting out the 
filling whenever so disposed. A nice mess ! 

Noiselessly I turn about, and flee for Ricardo. 
He will be equal to a decidedly delicate situation; 
for a panic must be avoided at all costs, and Nifia 
might lose her self control if ejected forcibly from 
a dwelling in which she distinctly does not belong. 

''Nina in a la casa!" ejaculates the boy. 

"Yes ! And the icebox was left open because there 
is no ice, and — *" 

But Ricardo is already running for his life. 

Arrived at the house, he strolls serenely up to 
the naughty one and in dulcet tones represents to 
her the larger joys of the outdoor life. Perhaps 
she is sick of cake, or else her predilection for 
Ricardo's society prevails over the desires of the 
palate; at all events she allows him to lead her 
out of my house. She will consent to any innova- 
tion on her privileges so long as human companion- 
ship be thrown in. 

We who lead the simple life are in the habit of 
going after our own laundry. One day I drove up 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 147 

to the house with the big bundle and went in to 
summon aid. When I came out a sad spectacle 
greeted my eyes. I had forgotten Nina, loose on 
the ranch, and that colts are more mischievous than 
puppies. The bundle had been twirled out of the 
buggy, shaken violently until it burst open, and all 
around, in field and orchard, lay once snowy gar- 
ments, and far in the distance swept at high speed 
the very incarnation of deviltry, worrying in her 
teeth my Sunday-go-to-meeting white dress! And 
the worst sting of all was that colts cannot be chas- 
tened as pups are chastened ! One must bear one's 
griefs in silence. Preventive measures — more 
easily named than applied — are the sole resource. 

Nina started out in life with the manifest inten- 
tion of keeping herself in the limelight. As a two 
day old baby she squeezed out of the shed inhabited 
by herself and mother, and contrived to suspend 
her small person across a barbed wire fence. The 
hour was midnight, and but for the lamentations 
of the forsaken mother the occupants of the 
house would have remained in ignorance of the 
tragedy. But on a ranch watchfulness is a good 
working quality, good ears in particular, so Nina 
was rescued without injury to any part of her ex- 
cept her dignity, being hoisted up under a woman's 
arm and restored where she belonged. This sum- 
mary procedure was resorted to quite often during 
the first weeks of this abnormally mischievous little 
creature's existence. Of all the colts, she took the 
cake in more senses than one. She took a veritable 
delight in foiling us. Heedless of her mother's 



148 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

shrill adjurations she would slip past the boy open- 
ing the gate for the buggy to pass through and insist 
on trotting alongside Jefif, the mean buggy horse, 
who hated her yet more bitterly than he hated every 
living thing; her adoration of this unpleasant beast 
was incomprehensible, for if he could bite or kick 
her he would. Anyway, if she could accompany 
the buggy she would trip along by his side, pay- 
ing no heed to nips and laid back ears. Our outfit 
often afforded amusement, although the public soon 
became acquainted with Nina and her wilful ways. 
Once she was repaid in her own coin — stolen — but 
contrived to outwit her captors and flew like a hom- 
ing pigeon straight to the place of her birth. 
Neighbors who had assisted in the search for the 
missing one declared that she must have covered 
many miles as she was thick with dust and sweat, 
and the broken rope dangling from her neck told 
its own tale. 

Debarred from entering the house a second time, 
she yet seemed to feel that some entering wedge 
of her own had been inserted in life's common day, 
and 'to keep her in her place became a problem. The 
kitchen was her favorite stamping ground. Should 
the screen door be left unwisely ajar Niiia pushed 
in. To tear open a sack of meal or flour and freely 
scatter the contents afforded her joy unspeakable. 
When I went into the outside store room to collect 
food for the chickens all Ricardo's strength and per- 
suasion was necessary to prevent her from follow- 
ing me, and when, as I fondly hoped, I was safely 
on my road to the corrals she would get ahead of me 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 149 

if she could and hold me up in a corner until she 
had extracted her percentage from the full pans. 
If necessity compelled me to stoop in her presence 
her greatest delight was to nibble the back of my 
neck. Of course the unknowing told me again and 
again that some day she would bite me, but equally 
of course she never did. Few horses are naturally 
vicious, and even Jeff's detestable traits were un- 
doubtedly due as much to ill treatment in youth as 
to a bad strain in his blood. Did space permit more 
than one amusing anecdote could be related con- 
cerning Jeff's hatred of Nina. With all her tricks 
Nifia was a lady — loyal and true, never failing a 
friend — but in Jeff the cur streak predominated 
over the good in him. All efforts to induce him to 
pull a wagon or buggy with Nina failed; he would 
put us to any inconvenience and the poor young 
Nina to the severest pulling tests rather than pull 
with her; he was against her from the first hour 
she stood on four feet. So when the mare was old 
enough for regular duty I disposed of him. But 
not before a visiting kinsman had, under extreme 
provocation, tested the old horse to the limit after 
Nina, hitched with him, had been obliged to pull 
the wagon home alone — a rigid try-out for a colt, 
to which she responded nobly. 

"The old brute!" exclaimed my kinsman, after 
a long absence with Jeff. "I couldn't get a balk out 
of him, single or double, with all kinds of horses, 
and yet look at the way he acted this morning with 
Nifia ! He simply does not intend to work with her, 



150 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

and he'll maim her in the corral one of these days. 
Sell him!" 

Despite the ubiquitous automobile of later days, 
the skipping- "road flea" largely in evidence, horses, 
buggies and wagons still exist; likewise slovenli- 
ness and neglect, especially where the buggy horse is 
concerned. As it was of old, so is it now. At one 
time there were just two or three of us who attend- 
ed to the decencies — that is, we sallied forth behind 
a sleek, well cared for team, harness and buggy 
both alike in order. Now it is but by a miracle such 
a pleasant sight greets the eye. Yet there are al- 
ways men on the ranch who can, maybe, wash a 
buggy once a month, clean harness perhaps twice a 
year, and see to it that they are not represented in 
public by rough, bony, neglected horses; this does 
not sound like a very large order. As for work 
horses — not overmuch time need be consumed in 
seeing that collars and pads fit, that harness is strip- 
ped off at noon, that these laborers worthy of their 
hire are allowed ample time for refreshment, that 
eyes showing the effects of dust are washed at night 
with salt and water, tender shoulders — though such 
should not be — also washed and tender hoofs 
greased. How much time does this supervision 
consume? A few minutes — and often days saved, 
days on which the horses of careless owners literally 
cannot work; and when a New Mexican, white or 
brown, rests his beast, one may be very sure that 
the animal is incapable of putting one foot before 
the other! Needless to add that there are several 
good ranchmen who realize that care of their teams 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 151 

puts money in their pockets, but the buggy outfit 
would, in most instances, disgrace any community. 
It is claimed that a Mexican cannot be taught to 
care for a horse; I can disprove that assertion. 
Mexicans whom I instructed in this line during my 
ranching days take to this hour a proper pride in 
their teams, and Ricardo in particular has brought 
his horses to me that I should admire them. I 
have had work teams in former times offered me for 
their keep — fine animals but in wretched condition, 
sore shouldered, ill nourished, and at the end of the 
allotted month have returned them almost unrecog- 
nizable by their owners — gay, sufficiently fat, living 
refutations of the doctrine that work in itself is bad 
for man or beast. Accused of not having worked 
the team, I had only to point to acres of freshly 
plowed land. The introduction several years later 
of fine stallions into the Valley did much, but much 
more remains to be done, even though the settle- 
ment in the Valley of Eastern farmers has also 
helped. 

Probably no animal rewards a little intelligent 
care so much as the horse — not pampering, for that 
is unintelligent. But how satisfactory to know that 
you or your peon can lead out of the pasture, with- 
out waste of time in chasing, the horse you stand 
in need of. How pleasant to hear at early morn 
the horses heralding the arrival of their caretaker 
with joyful sounds, or if at large thundering to 
greet him and rub their heads against his arm ; and 
this not because they are hungry or thirsty but be- 
cause affection prompts this haste. With what 



152 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

pride Ricardo leads my saddle mare to the door and 
tells me how she ran to meet him, nickering and 
holding- out an injured foot, sure that he would re- 
lieve her distress. How good to watch the horses 
going readily to their work because in return for it 
they are considerately treated. And this is not 
sentimentality, but plain horse-sense. 

Did space permit, more than one characteristic 
anecdote could be related of horses and their grati- 
tude — horses sold months before finding their own 
way back to the ranch and greeting and being greet- 
ed by their four footed comrades of old with en- 
thusiasm, and running to their former owner's 
hand — but here a halt must be called. 



CHAPTER XII 

SMALL POTATOES AND 
THOROUGHBREDS 

Just what connection exists between the two 
may not be at first apparent, but it is to be hoped 
w^ill become so. As I linger before arising this 
Spring morning my mind reverts to the development 
of my small potatoes into large potatoes. My small 
potato business chances to be the poultry business, 
but the same concentrated counsel applies to all 
beginnings — Go Slow ! Especially go slow if you 
are a novice, if you cannot afford to be in the losing 
class, if your ready cash with which to gamble is 
limited in amount. For of course the whole thing 
is a gamble, or at least calls for extreme caution. 
Many beginners, whether with hens or what not, 
labor under the delusion that big expenditure spells 
big profits. Never was there a more egregious 
error ! Women are less liable to err in this respect 
than men but on the other hand rarely keep accurate 
books, so that their ideas of Profit and Loss are, to 
say the least, hazy. But of this more later. 

On rising just before ''sun-up" I take a glance 
out of the window, as behooves a careful rancher, 
and am immediately possessed of the spirit of evil — 
or, to put it more decorously, with a sense of futile 
irritation. Painted ribbons stretching in placid, 
parallel lines across a sky of unpaintable azure 



154 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

should not irritate a person, yet they do. It is go- 
ing to blow, and between wind and myself exists a 
mutual, though vain, antipathy. So I ride on my 
way early, in the fond hope of escaping the in- 
escapable. My errand leads me to the home of a 
rather distant neighbor, who is reported to be 
favorably considering my plan of putting a setting 
of thoroughbred Minorca eggs under one of her 
"ornery" hens and receiving in return for the favor 
a cockerel and a pullet. This method of improving 
common stock at practically no cost I have already 
found acceptable in the neighborhood. 

The practice of borrowing setting hens, when my 
own supply of Langshans runs short, has on the 
other hand not proved satisfactory, inasmuch as 
buggy-riding seems to upset the plans and pros- 
pects of a setting hen. Having worried her em- 
ployer almost sick by setting on anything — a white 
door knob in a dry acequia, for instance — she dis- 
embarks at my home in an altered frame of mind. 
In short, she is pettish and stand-off. If I can 
persuade her to take a seat on beauteous Minorca 
eggs, so far superior to those to which she has been 
accustomed, I am in luck. 

My business is transacted amicably and success- 
fully, but I return still in somewhat ruffled mood. 
I declare that it is the wind, already strong enough 
to toss my little mare's mane skyward and beguile 
her into unseemly capers, but the wind is not wholly 
to blame. 

Hitherto I have always named distance as an ob- 
stacle to intimacy with this neighbor, whereas as a 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 155 

matter of fact I am afraid of her. She poses as a 
goodnatured, motherly woman, and sad to say I 
have learned to beware of such — in the general, 
not in the particular, I hasten emphatically to add. 
In her vicinity I step lightly and avoid treading on 
her corns; for her sort never forgets or forgives. 
The impulsive, look-out-for-yourself, outspoken 
kind does; one dwells in no fear of that species, 
male or female. I also am surprised that so tact- 
ful a lady should blunder into trying a dose of gos- 
sip on me. Few make that mistake, although no 
doubt the majority regard such an attitude as a 
symptom of "queerness." Assertions bearing im- 
probability on their very face were this morning 
offered as a pill to be swallowed whole, without 
question. In rejecting the dose I was tempted to 
retort that everything Arcadian has forsaken Ar- 
cadia except its stupidity: fortunately prudence 
intervened, and as aforesaid we parted on the 
pleasantest of terms, though my departure was 
hastened not merely by the rising gale. Provincial 
society is abominably lacking in simplicity. Friend- 
ship, for instance — that blessed tie uniting man and 
woman — it declines to acknowledge as a possibility, 
goinsT so far as to besmirch it with foul names — 
for the reason probably that such a helpful and 
gentle sentiment cannot long exist unmarred within 
its boundaries. Civilization in its finest flower — 
which is Simplicity — alone represents friendship be- 
twixt man and woman. It W'ould not be a bad idea 
for the Modern Woman, who we are assured is to 
"Uplift" Mere Man, to try her hand first on en- 



156 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

couraging- the more prolific growth of that fine 
flower, instead of being too often the leader in the 
dragging down and besmirching process. And in 
hurrying back to my thoroughbreds — such a wide 
embracing term, me seems!— I fled also from my 
neighbor's propensity to peck at my cherished 
friends of either sex, of the feminine gender this 
morning, acutely sensible of this too common dis- 
courtesy and perhaps pardonably speculating and 
pondering — well, I alighted from my restive steed 
and visited for a few minutes with my thorough- 
breds, to find them too somewhat ruffled. Two hens 
were facing one another, engaged apparently in 
harmless gossip. All of a sudden they sprang up 
on their toes, and started a wordy encounter which 
soon proceeded to blows. A majestic Minorca 
gentleman who had been watching the ladies ask- 
ance, evidently anticipating trouble from overmuch 
indulgence in scandal-mongering, now stepped for- 
ward, and interposing his lordly person between the 
combatants at once put an end to the afifray. But 
his expression, as he turned his high, red-topped 
head from one to another was inimitable. 

"Ladies! I am surprised at you!" 

So I go into my den and bend my mind to the 
pleasant task of examining my poultry books, pleas- 
ant because the Credit page is so well filled. 

Pleasant also would it be for a successful hen- 
woman to enter into a lengthy dissertation con- 
cerning the whys and wherefores of her success. 
But we are not all poultry fanciers, any more than I 
was when I embarked in the business, and present- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 157 

ly, after submitting my books to searching investi- 
gation, found that my estimate of 40% on my in- 
vestment was absolutely correct. I will by omitting 
many details contrive to keep myself within bounds 
on this poultry question. Good adobe houses suf- 
ficient for a beginning were already on the ground, 
and whatever may be said to the contrary, adobe 
houses gave me no trouble ; on the contrary, for they 
provided w^armth in winter and being kept clean 
never harbored vermin. So good did I find them 
that in due course I built more. Large corrals, 
divided for future necessities, had to be erected. 
Usually, though not invariably, the fowls had the 
run of the ranch. 

Disgusted with a job lot of feathered objects 
left on my hands, and guided by some modicum of 
working sense, I at once committed numerous night- 
mares of roosters to the fleshpot and then sought 
light to illumine my hen darkness. But alack ! light 
was there none in my vicinity. Arid my soul craved 
thoroughbreds. 

"Thoroughbreds?!" shrieked the neighbors in 
chorus. "Thoroughbreds won't do any good in 
this climate!" 

Why not? quoth I to myself. I was ignorant, 
yes ; but a dry sunny clime, whose rainy season oc- 
curs mostly in summertime — what was the matter 
with it for thoroughbreds ? Nothing, I decided, and 
promptly set to work, but with modest initiatory 
outlay. That first spring I sent away to a big east- 
ern fancier for two young, large-eight pounders — 
to be accurate — ^"Black Minorca roosters, acting on 



158 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

advice of a far-off sister who had triumphed with 
Minorcas and Black Lan^^shans. These gorgeous 
beings I introduced to my very common hens. For 
the benefit of those unfamiliar with the Minorca 
in all his glory, I will add that a Minorca rooster is 
the proudest fowl that steps. There are moments 
when our lowly earth is too lowly for him judging 
by his magnificent progress, the arching of his bur- 
nished neck and symmetrical tail, the air with which 
he carries his tall scarlet comb and shakes his long 
wattles. He can outbrag the turkey gobbler him- 
self! And the Minorca's lordly airs are further 
heightened by a larger silence than belongs to 
roosters of lesser majesty; he does not find it neces- 
sary to crow inanely and incessantly for the mainten- 
ance of his dignity: noblesse oblige does not work 
that way with him. It is to be hoped that in time 
the nerve devastating shrieks of roosters may be 
altogether abolished now that a way has been found 
to put a stopper on the mule's bray. 

Imagine, then, the expression of insulted dignity 
with which these two imported lords of creation 
regarded the plebeian creatures with whom they 
were expected to consort! After a prolonged sur- 
vey, both stalked away, giving voice to deep notes 
of displeasure. In the aristocratic seclusion from 
whence they had emerged never had it been their 
lot to look upon such vulgar travesties of ladies, 
much less suffer an introduction to them ! 

But time soothes disappointments grievous even 
as this one. By the Fall I had a lot of vigorous half 
bred chicks, so sightly that many of them were the 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 159 

equal in appearance of those exhibited to me by- 
proud but ill-advised owners as "genuine Mi- 
norcas." This was my sole piece of luck — the pre- 
potency of the two birds I had purchased ; for every 
breeder who knows anythinof knows that prepotency 
is luck and nothinof more. By this time I felt my- 
self eaual to launching- out a little further, and again 
sent East, this time for Minorca and Langshan 
hens, Or rather pullets, making- away with the barn- 
yard fowls as rapidly as feasible with the exception 
of two or three good mothers. But the time arrives 
for me to call a halt, or my hobby will carry me too 
far. 

There are a few details which may, however, 
prove of interest. It is brains that count in the hen 
business, not mere manual labor. Also in this busi- 
ness, as in ranching, wnlHngness to take advice is of 
great importance. Two healthseekers, former Blue 
Ribbon winners in the East, were of service to me 
when I began carrying off Blue Ribbons myself. 
For the hen as such I care nothing; the fun of the 
game lies in the scientific end. By this I mean read- 
ing and eliminating, watching, studying; raising 
birds which shall not only win premiums but pro- 
duce eggs in quantity. I succeeded ; but do not im- 
agine. O beginner, that success rewards the person 
who is not persistent. The climate of southern 
New Mexico is ideal for the poultry business, yet 
many there be who write themselves down as fail- 
ures. Many too came to me for advice, hung 
around gazing enviously at my healthy, shiny ebony 
flocks, stood amazed at my first year record of six- 



160 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

teen to eighteen eggs per diem from twenty hens 
and that in our coldest winter months — then went 
away and bought them a couple of hundred fowls 
of two or three breeds, mixed them all together, 
never segregated young and old — a vital necessity 
usually overlooked — kept no hours for feeding, let 
them roost out or leave the houses early on cold 
winter mornings without breakfast, and so forth, 
and then complained to me that my forty odd hens 
(the greatest number I ever kept, as quality not 
quantity was my object) supplied the family, the 
markets and the fanciers, whilst their innumerable 
hens produced eggs insufficient for the home table. 
Such people one cannot help, as I have learned by 
bitter experience. Mental application rather than 
toilsome labor, regularity, keen eyes — all these 
things and more are necessary if success is desired. 
The actual work cannot be called exercise when 
other ranch work receives its full meed of attention 
also ; furthermore every ranch must keep a boy, who 
can clean the hen-houses and carry fresh water with- 
out interference with his regular duties. In five and 
one half years I lost one chick from disease. The 
only disease which visited the grown birds was 
roup, the first time contracted at a show. With the 
help of one of the ex-fanciers afore mentioned I 
contrived to save all my valuable pullets ; but it was 
hard, and often night, work. The second time a 
splendid Minorca rooster — for of course the ever 
risky hour in which one must buy new stock ar- 
rived — was the guilty party. He came from one of 
the famous eastern breeders, but had evidently had 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 161 

the roup, for he arrived snuffling. Called away- 
most inopportunely I went, leaving strict injunc- 
tions for the immuring of the royally bred bird un- 
til my return, when I would diagnose his case. I 
returned, after an unexpectedly prolonged absence, 
to find that half of the chickens running around be- 
longed to the new comer and that fully two-thirds 
of them had the snuffles. Their heads were prompt- 
ly laid on the block, but not before that of the roy- 
ally bred author of my woe. The remaining third 
came as near to perfection as Minorca may; yet I 
had proved the truth of the saying that when com- 
pelled by fear of inbreeding to seek outside stock, 
the hen-person's future trembles in the balance. As 
for cholera and other diseases, all alike were stran- 
gers to my hen home. I should make but a poor 
physician for "diseases peculiar to this climate." 

Forcing or patent foods were banned. Alfalfa, 
milk, and in winter ground green bone, amply filled 
their place. In winter, too, pans of milk were put 
in the houses at night for early morning refresh- 
ment. Grain was fed with discrimination and fore- 
sight. The chicks were raised largely on corn meal 
and milk, enjoying a private lunch counter un- 
molested by greedy hens. During the hatching pro- 
cess I let the old hen severely alone in the specially 
appointed quarters for setting hens, feeling that a 
specialist should know more about her own business 
than a rank outsider. I also threw to the winds the 
red tape notion that chicks must not be fed until 
they are twenty- four hours old. I would like to see 
such a course pursued with the vigorous Minorca 



162 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

chicks bred in our climate, who are squealing and 
scratching soon after they get out of the shell! I 
surely fed mine, and very soon too — hard boiled 
eggs and cracker crumbs every two hours for a 
day or so, and never leaving them to starve in the 
house at night. Thus my stock was in demand in 
distant States, because they were sturdy, active 
and healthy, and never by any chance weak or 

"leggy." ... 

A tragi-comic episode in relation to the un- 
naturally maternal yearnings of Minorcas in this 
climate is worthy of mention. A premium-win- 
ning hen insisted on setting, so after vainly attempt- 
ing dissuasion I gave way, and in due course she 
hatched out. A Langshan following suit 1 pre- 
sented her with the two broods, for T doubted the 
reliability of a mother who was a meml.^er of the 
fiery Mediterranean race. The despoiled hen I 
turned loose with the flock. The highly capable 
Langshan disposed of all the chicks beneath her 
ample wings, and I considered the affair settled. 
Not so the outraged Minorca. For days she fol- 
lowed her triumphant rival around, clucking and 
scratching and using every means in her power to 
purloin the chicks. But they would have none of 
her; their present mother was too feathery and 
comforting. At last the bereft hen's appeals found 
their way to one heart, and a single chick abandoned 
the comforts of home. But to see that hen gather 
in her prize ! She fussed and rustled and scratched 
for that solitary chick as if she had at least twenty 
to provide for, and by sheer pluck and energy 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 163 

held on to it. Yet another episode: One of my 
birds, after winning at a show the prize offered for 
the best hen of any breed, decided to range herself, 
and with my half-hearted consent spread her smart- 
ly plumaged, leg-banded person over ten eggs of 
her own laying — such eggs rarely weighing less 
than four ounces. As setter and mother her con- 
duct was exemplary, and all went well until one 
fearsome day a hawk swooped down upon the scat- 
tered poultry, and instead of fleeing for refuge as 
did every other hen and chick on the place, she 
held her ground, gathering her brood under her 
wings. Before Ricardo could rush armed upon 
the tragic scene she had lost both eyes in deadly 
combat, although her chicks were saved. True to 
her fighting blood she died ; and the hawk died too. 
But this was not the end. As correspondent to one 
of the poultry papers I related the whole affair, and 
at once the big eastern Minorca breeders rebelled. 
A premium hen set and rear chickens? Nonsense! 
She must have been a mongrel ! I was called on to 
furnish evidence, which was easy enough. My 
Minorcas were well known in the West and the 
testimony to the hen's blue blood was soon forth- 
coming and to the fact that she had indeed won 
the great all-round premium. Minorca breeders 
finally settled down to sheer amazement. 

From one show I brought back a somewhat un- 
dersized but highbred Langshan cockerel, acting on 
the advice of the judge when he learned that I had 
some Langshan hens very nearly as fine as the 
Minorcas. For some weeks the cockerel lived a se- 



164 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

eluded life, but when he had grown into a mag- 
nificent bird tipping the scales at fourteen pounds 
he well repaid me for the single dollar he had cost. 
He was christened Jumbo, and he and his brought 
home many a Blue and Red Ribbon. The cross be- 
tween the Minorca and the Langshan is a very de- 
sirable fowl, but my ambitions grew with every 
year. Needless to say to the trained henman or 
woman that roosters must not walk around with the 
hens the long year through, therefore the time came 
when Jumbo was put out to board. On the place of 
his temporary sojourn no chickens were kept, but 
for a while he managed to amuse himself by even- 
ing strolls with the family, who caressed him as 
they would a dog. Presently, however, this diver- 
sion failed, and one morning he sallied forth alone, 
returning just as his absence was beginning to 
cause anxiety, but not alone. No more alone ! He 
had found somewhere a small brown hen and kid- 
napped her, and supreme was the care he lavished 
upon this insignificant person. No dainty morsel 
was too good for her, and as she did not share his 
taste for evening promenades he abandoned his 
walks with the family. 

I have not alluded to incubators, for though in 
course of time a friend in the city went into part- 
nership with me and raised incubator chicks, I ne- 
ver found them to be as thrifty as the old hen-raised 
babies. Neither did I achieve one up to Blue Rib- 
bon standard, and as that standard was what I 
worked for I stayed with the old hen. I have been 
assured that incubators are a trifle hard to regulate 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 165 

at high altitude, and I could not afford to add to my 
daily cares. I aimed for the highscoring bird, not 
for large quantities of passable birds. To realize 
40% on my investment was good enough for me. 
Naturally I evolved many and sundry methods 
of my own which conduced to success, but back of 
all w^as System. I am willing to acknowledge, 
nevertheless, that an abundance of milk and alfalfa 
are more than merely desirable. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY 

I LOOK up from my writing. What kind of a 
storm is this? 

The sun has set, but the falling darkness is swift 
and almost horrible. The deep brown earth seems 
to close upon itself, shrinking, afraid. Angry 
cloud masses sweep portentously across the expanse 
of sky. Darker it grows, and cold. The landscape 
is a sentient thing, awaiting annihilation from those 
browbeating clouds, whose terrorstriking aspect, 
even in thisjand of tremendous effects, I have never 
seen equalled. Shuddering and inexpressibly lone- 
ly the solitary watcher shrinks with the shrinking 
earth. Then by sheer force of habit the eyes turn 
toward the East; and there, against the yet clear 
sky, dripped like dewdrops along the horizon — so 
silvery, so translucent are they — rise those ever- 
lasting hills, shining with a radiance that is of 
heaven, not of earth. On this night no ecstasy of 
color is theirs, but rather do they appear as disem- 
bodied spirits breathing immortality. And in the 
heart of the mortal enveloped in the gloom of the 
Valley springs as unexpectedly the consolation of 
the ages: There is no Death. 

So does one return somewhat abruptly though 
not inharmoniously from mental journeyings into 
prehistoric times. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 167 

"A wonderful country" indeed this of New Mex- 
ico and Arizona, to those who have eyes to see and 
imaginations with which to dream backward — nay, 
forward. Within its immense area the oldest civil- 
ization in the United States had its birth — a civili- 
zation datino- not later than six hundred years after 
the Christian Era, and brooding with the romance 
of ages earlier.* To this day, despite the work 
of archeologists and historical students the ''marvel- 
lous country"retains much of the glamor of the 
Northern Mystery — the glamor which led the 
Spaniards, themselves belonging to the age of mir- 
acles, to struggle on, again and again thwarted, 
without guide, without actual knowledge, in the 
bliss of an ignorance the age of science scorns — to 
struegle, and to succeed ! 

Here in the Land of the Northern Mystery linger 
traces of cities antedating that of Rome; amazing 
tapestries, intricate and elaborate adornments of 
gold and silver and precious stones decked men and 
women who have vanished into the Unknown ; even 
their acequais were protected with a form of con- 
crete hardly inferior to our own. Endless surmise 
is the sole result, so far, of historical research. 
Still do the mountains hold secrets in their deep 
hearts. Fertile vale and flowerstrewn mesa, the 
desert's remorseless spaces covering generations 
of men out of mind and forgotten, high ranges 
through whose tall grass the wind whispers of that 
mysterious past ; the vast horizon, castellated or 
pyramidal, flaming at dawn or sunset under an in- 
comparable sky — all are dumb. Craters whose 

*H. O. Ladd. 



168 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

limit no human being may reach, beds and rivers 
of lava cooled for unnumbered years, freaks of 
Nature varied and various, ancient gold mines so 
craftily concealed that many remain hidden to this 
day — cave dwellings and cliff dwellings, traces of 
cities and pueblos — signs of age-old tribes who set 
their mark upon the land forever. Cafions green 
with live-oak and fern and sparkling with eternal 
springs, even our own familiar bosques bowing and 
sighing the white nights through by our errant riv- 
er's bed — all reveal little, conceal so much. In this 
lies part of the wonderful country's spell — its preg- 
nant silence. 

"And here" wrote Mr. Bancroft, "we come still 
upon a people. . . . retaining many of their original 
characteristics, and living on the same sites in 
buildings similar to, or in some cases perhaps 
identical with, those occupied by their ancestors at 
the coming of the Europeans." 

Whether or no the claim put forward by the 
Pueblos i. e. that they are the veritable aborigines 
of the American continent be true, it is certain that 
at the coming of the Spaniards various offshoots 
of this great tribal people were well in advance of 
European civilization, in some respects at least. 
In the year of grace, 19 14, an English writer came 
with an old idea presented on a new dish. Con- 
siderably over a quarter of a century ago New 
Mexican archaeologists, patiently investigating the 
Northern Mystery, gave it as their opinion that the 
prehistoric tribes of the Western States, the Mis- 
sissippi Valley and Mexico, were of Mongolian 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 169 

origin, and that they crossed over from Asia by 
way of Behring Strait which, according to geolo- 
gists, was then dry land. Yet from a scientific 
standpoint this opinion was not intended to be con- 
clusive any more than the Englishman's supposed 
discovery is novel or original. The Mongolian cast 
of countenance may often be observed, however, 
both in New and Old Mexico. It is further deemed 
probable that the mound builders were later driven 
by some more barbaric race from the Mississippi 
Valley to Central America, and it is very sure that 
they were a methodical and orderly people, employ- 
ing slave labor and possessing a form of govern- 
ment. 

But history, especially that of his own romantic 
land, fails to interest the average reader, so here 
the line must be drawn, fascinating though the story 
of New Mexico be to the few. It may, neverthe- 
less, be mentioned that the two oldest Missions in 
the United States, although unfortunately in partial 
or total ruin, are to be found in New Mexico, on 
the sites of ancient cities or pueblos which are yield- 
ing much of interest to archeologists. These Mis- 
sions are at the very least one hundred and fifty 
years older than any of the California Missions. 

As the Tenderfoot extricates herself to some ex- 
tent from the web of tiresome circumstance and 
daily happenings, she surveys with mingled indig- 
nation and amazement the stout and strong and 
presumably intelligent visitor who, with means at 
his command, idles away his time within our bor- 
ders, abusing the "uninteresting" — Heaven be 



170 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

merciful to him! — comitry, and swearing that it 
has nothing but CHmate to recommend it. 

Verily to him that hath naught shall naught be 
given. Yet from time to time artists have visited 
us, only to go away overcome, possibly, by desert 
skies and mountains in combination with valleys of 
a verdure so young and gay that its greenness is 
as hard to depict on canvas as is the whole amazing 
sky — and — landscape. At this writing a couple of 
young artists are succeeding with the brilliant, 
dazzling aspect of desert scenery — succeeding to a 
charm. But scenery with us has so many and vary- 
ing faces. It is not always brilliant and in color is 
never Jwrd. To one who for many years has 
watched its varying emotions, its daring moods are 
but one of many. In its soft depths lies often its 
greatest beguilment to the desert lover. 

It is not often that the ranchwoman can fare 
forth, but when she finds herself at length upon an 
overland train, it is to be stricken dumb by the com- 
placent know-nothingness of the typical tourist. 
Unless she watch well her ways, she may listen with 
bulging eyes to the weird, bottomless yarns poured 
forth by the ignorant — yarns purporting to describe 
New Mexico, its climate, products and inhabitants. 
(With its history, needless to say, the yarner does 
not concern himself.) The very-know-it-all of the 
talkative tourist inspires a vague alarm : do we the 
residents live in truth in such a horror-striking 
land? It may well be made a subject of prayer that 
the increasing variety in methods of transportation 
may awaken the average American to some know- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 171 

ledge of his own vast country off the beaten tracks. 
A rare treat is it to journey in company with one 
who really merits the title of traveler ! 

While passing on one of the overland trains 
through a valley some hundred miles removed from 
my own, a strident feminine voice abruptly penetrat- 
ed every corner of the hitherto peaceful Pullman. 

"Our Johnny went all through this section in 
a wagon last year. He regained his health that I 
must say, but the tales he told us of the lives these 
people lead were something dreadful! Ranches 
miles and miles apart, women dying of loneliness 
and hard work, scarcely any churches or schools" — 
Oh, Johnny, well it is for you that no New Mexican 
lady got a grip on you ere you escaped to relate 
such fables! — "and everything and everybody just 
running wild. Yet I don't quite see why people 
we see on the station platforms look so rosy and 
well satisfied. Then they do seem to make things 
grow, too! Yet Johnny said that all crops depend 
on the Spring rains, and if they don't come the peo- 
ple nearly starve." 

Spring rains ! Spring rains, which are, or were, 
represented by the raging Rio Grande roaring down 
from the northern mountains like a tiger unre- 
strained, and bestowing its fertilizing waters a 
thought too profusely. Rains in the springtime 
cause the Oldest Inhabitant to sit up and take mild, 
even grateful, notice; if we had them often we 
should lose our young chicks, but that is another 
subject. It is not in the Spring that the thoughts of 
the true sportsman turn yearningly to visions of 



172 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

succulent mountain trout, or his ear greedily to 
mountain lion and bear stories, or to game big or 
little in the varied fastnesses of the New Mexican 
mountains, north and south ; rather is it in the 
Fall, after the summer rains, when he sits before a 
roaring fire of cedar or cottonwood, and cleans and 
oils the weapons that are his. 

And while yet on the overland train it may be 
mentioned that the ranching district through which 
we were passing whilst the loud voiced lecturer 
held forth — she or another, what matters it? — taps 
by means of pumping plants the underflow of one 
of those Lost Rivers of New Mexico — o. fair sample 
of the weird streams for which the State is no- 
torious. They are always on tap, and are liable to 
come to the surface again anywhere when so dis- 
posed, or else they form underground lakes in 
places where the mountains have created suitable 
basins for their reception. 

Not only on trains but in the sanctity of our 
homes do we receive an immense amount of gratui- 
tous information concerning our own far country. 
Gratuitous it can afford to be for as information, 
whether in the form of Wild West stories written 
by some Pullman observer or hurried "chaser" 
through our midst, or by optimistically accurate 
newspaper or magazine writers of sorts, it does not 
help us — much. That is, we can "make out," gener- 
ally speaking, by using our own eyes and ears dur- 
ing a period of years. A decade or so ago a Boston 
newspaper solemnly informed us that the Bad ]\lan 
and the cowboy, cattle and sheep feuds, were ex- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 173 

tinct in our section. As it chanced a deadly feud 
was at that date raging- at no very distant point 
between cattle and sheepmen. The Bad Man, East 
and West, will be extinct when laws are justly ad- 
ministered and human beings' "angry passions" 
cease to rise; just as lynchings will be unheard of 
when the proper administration of justice comes in- 
to its own. In New Mexico, at all events — which 
is not Texas — lynchings are practically unknown, 
or unknown in my experience. But when men are 
permitted to commit murder, not once, but several 
times, and by some quibble of the law, combined 
with the financial ability to pay lawyers, escape pun- 
ishment, sooner or later the people are tempted to 
take the law as it is meant into their own hands — 
law as it is written, not as it is too often applied. 
Commonsense assures us that there is but one ob- 
vious remedy for lynching ; but into much bombastic 
talk commonsense declines to enter. As for cow- 
boys — they will continue to exist so long as "the 
wonderful country" spreads before the cattlemen 
leagues and leagues of high ranges unfit for cultiva- 
tion. With every passing year more fences are erect- 
ed, but cowboys, even if in diminished numbers, re- 
main indispensable. Did space allow, I could relate 
anecdotes of the Wild West cowboy, which would 
place him a good deal higher in the scale of good 
breeding and chivalry than many so-called educated 
and superior men can lay claim to — in the experi- 
ence of a lone woman, that is. And surely no one 
is better fitted than the said lone woman to set the 
truth before the uninformed reader. 



174 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

But here I must abandon "the wonderful coun- 
try," omit so much of its romantic story — even 
where it trends on modern days — for fear of weary- 
ing a reader who, like Gamaliel of old, cares for 
none of these things. 



CHAPTER XIV 

HEALTHSEEKERS, AND MATTERS 
PERTINENT 

In writing of our climate, that perverse factor 
which will give you the lie if it can, it was climate 
that attracted to our Valley, during the course of 
decades, innumerable healthseekers, not invariably 
victims of tuberculosis but for the most part thus 
afflicted. I employ the past tense, for the reason that 
the number of such visitors has greatly declined. 
The causes for such decline are several and will 
find place later. 

To go backward. The healthseekers who during 
the winter season filled our ranch resort, dotted our 
waste places with tents or sought refuge in our 
valley homes, brought with them — they and their 
healthy companions — much joy as well, alas! as 
pain : friendships which endured until death did us 
part or which endure unto this day. The memories 
connected with these visitors are by no means all 
sad; indeed close comradeship with some created 
out of apparent nothingness many a festive hour. 
And the best of them rounded out so to speak, the 
mental atmosphere, enlarged the horizon by reason 
of the ideas brought from the wider life of which 
they had more recently partaken, and the perusal 
of new books and reviews gathered around the 



176 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

ranch desk was revivified by the red blood of dis- 
cussion. 

There are some in particular whose memories 
those who knew them would do well to cherish in the 
inner places of their souls, were the cherishing of 
memories not so woefully out of date. 

"Aren't you tired of being asked every day how 
you are ?" I said, whilst filling a vase for one 1 loved 
with crimson roses from my garden — the red, red 
roses I always saved for her. 

"I am!" she retorted, looking up at me with 
blithe, smiling eyes. "But I always say I am very 
well. Yoit understand, don't you ?" 

Yes — I understood. 

And men too — ^young, gifted men, perhaps, with 
all the world before them where to choose, and who 
instead have found strength to choose sacrifice, 
abnegation, in one form or another; who might 
have snatched from the hand of Fate happiness or 
greater length of days, but who, because these could 
only be had at cost to some other, have refrained. 

Of the selfish who accepted one's service as their 
right, the querulous who complained because there 
is too much sun or not enough, who lived poorly in 
their homes yet carped at the good fare here pro- 
vided for them, who prated everlastingly of "God's 
Country" — meaning thereby as likely as not some 
obscure village or smoky city — and shut their eyes 
to the actual God's Country to which they were tem- 
porarily exiled: who when I (myself exiled, though 
for another cause than theirs) drive them up on 
the mesa to behold the resplendence of the sunset 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 177 

sky, can discourse of nothing but the amount of 
milk or the number of raw eggs they have that day 
consumed or sigh obstreperously for a New York 
porterhouse steak — then in very truth I, who was 
also exiled, found our healthseeker a burden heavy 
to be borne — especially when weary and making the 
hard, individual fight. 

More healthful is it for the soul to give than tC) 
receive, but there are times when the soul is un- 
equal to the large part assigned to it, and personal 
trials cannot always be forgotten in ministering to 
those of the ungrateful and unappreciative. Such 
ministry, long drawn out, drives the iron inward 
once in a while. Also it gradually became apparent 
that the sense of obligation, even the veriest frac- 
tion, is carried gracefully and fitly only by those in 
whom some noble quality exists. Dorman': may be 
this essence of nobility, or to the dull eye invisible, 
but mortals through whose warp and woof runs a 
thread of gold alone seem capable of keeping the 
divine fire warm upon their hearth-stones. 

Thus we approach one of the reasons for the de- 
cline of the healthseeker in our Valley — the trans- 
ient that is. Of resident healthseekers there are 
many, the larger number carrying on without let or 
hindrance various occupations, others for no suf- 
ficient reasons not faring well or merely enjoying 
a lengthening of their days. For any person who 
endeavors to forecast the future when up against 
the most unreliable and fickle of all mortal com- 
plaints is a gambler indeed! Our winter visitors in 
the past furnished us more than amply with that 



178 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

type of invalid who was of the opinion that the 
country, and most particularly the wild and wooly 
West, owed him a living. Such individuals were 
more or less dependent on the established residents, 
as they looked to the latter to provide them with oc- 
cupation which should at once support them in com- 
fort and yet not be beyond their strength to per- 
form. It is not too much to say that the residents 
after many long years began to find these visitors 
somewhat of a tax ; not because our people are less 
kindhearted than others but because the health- 
seekers may with justice be accused of having worn 
out their welcome. Sad it is to have to confess that 
the sight of the usual advertisement beginning 
"Healthseeker desires a position, etc.," or the sound 
of the words "I am here for my health and would 
like to get work for my board," sent a shudder down 
the spine of the sorely tried and seasoned benefac- 
tor of the invalid-who-is-willing-to-work. "No 
healthseeker need apply," were words only too often 
heard, but the fault generally lay with the health- 
seeker. 

These men were not invariably Lungers ; some- 
times they were merely taking a vacation — clerks 
in big city stores and so forth, who needed a dry, 
bracing winter climate. Our people, though far 
from poverty stricken, are or were seldom or never 
rich ; therefore in course of time the residents wax- 
ed restive and the meritorious healthseekers suf- 
fered. Neither were schemes for living on "these 
Westerners" confined altogether to the poor and 
needy. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 179 

He who can continue to give cheerfully and hope- 
fully after a decade or so passed in such an environ- 
ment is less human than divine, or perhaps merely 
thickskinned. 

After repeated disappointments I decided to try 
again. During an entire winter one healthseeker 
after another was given a fair chance. They were 
not Lungers or if so but slightly affected, and feed- 
ing and watering four or five head of stock morning 
and night (the stock was running on the ranch most 
of the time) harnessing, saddling and currying a 
horse or two and keeping a buggy clean is not very 
laborious work, as I know, who at a pinch have done 
it myself. Decent interest was manifested in their 
health and concerns generally, and decent measures 
taken to spare their strength, but evidently such 
interest was a mistake ; for sooner or later, generally 
sooner, each in his turn sat back, reduced his tri- 
fling tasks to a minimum the moment he began to 
''feel good," and either fired himself or was fired. 
Incompetence, from charitable motives, can be en- 
dured, but shirking and characteristic ingratitude 
soon grow wearisome. 

The insolence toward a lone woman typical of the 
class to which I refer was checked, though not 
wholly squelched, by the moral support of a visiting 
kinsman. This type curbs its Citizen Genet tongue 
when a man is back of a woman, otherwise her ut- 
most courtesy and kindliness may be exhibited a 
good deal worse than in vain. Here is where the 
star of the plain peon is in the ascendant. 

Thus, if one is by training or temperament gener- 



180 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

ous, many, both sick and well, are apt to take ad- 
vantage of the sympathetic ear and ready hand, and 
bearing one another's burdens gradually takes on an 
air of duty rather than pleasure. The joy of giv- 
ing grows small by degrees and unbeauti fully less. 
If only we were really as dull as some persons choose 
to believe, or were really only Easy Marks, we 
should slip more smoothly along life's vexed and 
tortuous way. But we are not. When T give vent 
to observations concerning the demoralizing effects 
of long-continued poverty or dependence to one 
more worldly-wise than I, they are greeted with a 
melancholy nod of affirmation. Something goes 
down in the struggle — a proper pride and several 
lesser items. Also we descry causes for this long- 
continued poverty. To name but one among many : 
thriftlessness, nay destructiveness. Where I keep 
a piece of property in speckless condition for years 
the poverty howlers will ruin it in a month. So it 
is with everything. They have little because they 
are too careless, or too superior to petty cares; they 
have never acquired the automatic, systematic habit 
of taking thought for what they have ; ergo, present- 
ly they have nothing. Then comes the inevitable 
whine — "If I had as much as you have it would be 
worth while to bother!" To which senseless com- 
plaint reply would be a mere waste of energy. There 
was a day when extreme verdancy prompted a kind- 
ly meant explanation, but verdancy has long since 
been nipped by the bitter frosts of experience 

The working-boarder proposition may be said to 
have died a natural death. The he-come, haven't- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 181 

came-yet, he-done, I-seen and you-was specimens of 
the male sex, who sought the Golden West for rea- 
sons quite other than that of the search for labor, 
are no longer in evidence. Pointedly deficient in the 
saying grace of humor they are "insulted" at every 
turn. However humbly placed individually, good 
breeding is not "touchy," but neither does it enjoy 
having the nutmeg-grater of illiterate speech drag- 
ged hourly across its nervous system. Hence, large- 
ly, the barriers of caste. Substitute Taste for Caste, 
acknowledge that sensitiveness and touchiness have 
nothing in common, and perhaps the problem is 
half solved. 

There are times when the snobbishness stalking 
around even in the Free-and-Equal-VVest becomes 
a good joke. For instance one evening I arrived 
late for supper at our ranch resort, which oc- 
casionally entertained guests who were not health- 
seekers but who lingered for the sake of good board 
and attractive surroundings or for reasons of per- 
sonal convenience. It was late Spring and busy times 
on the ranch and consequently my excuses met with 
ready acceptance. But a woman — to whom one 
would never think of applying the now expiring 
term Lady — lifted a *'proud" head and stared at me 
with an expression which was intended to be haugh- 
ty and "exclusive." 

"Well," she said, "I'm glad / have never been in 
a position which compelled me to do menial labor!" 

Position! Menial! Lord o' Love! as a dear old 
country friend was wont to exclaim when deeply 
stirred. What did this woman mean by "position ?" 



182 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

And "menial?" So little did I know that I dropped 
my napkin under the table and fell headlong after 
it to conceal convulsions of laughter. Some present 
were indignant but to me the woman was simply 
irresistibly funny ! Neither would she have under- 
stood that I was not laughing at her because her 
husband's income was small and he in a small way 
of business, but because — as the children say. 

There are at least two other reasons for the com- 
parative disappearance of winter healthseekers: 
first, the lack of suitable accommodation; second, the 
dread of the consumptive, developed in recent 
years. 

It is interesting and occasionally instructive, to 
note how the wheel of time revolves. Exaggerated 
terror of the consumptive has simply come round 
to us again. In the days of Armijo, the last Govern- 
or of New Mexico under Mexican rule, a careful 
padre laid down regulations at once stringent and 
absurd regarding the conduct of his flock should a 
member of it pass the dwelling of a tuberculous 
person. Amusing as some of these regulations were 
they were scarcely more illogical than a few of 
these prescribed by up-to-date alarmists. Discre- 
tion is one thing, monomania quite another. Thus 
revolves the eternal wheel ; and there is nothing 
new under the sun. 

The advice given patients by eastern specialists, 
or by physicians landing in our midst like ballons 
inflated with imported theories — both ignorant alike 
of our climatic conditions and so forth — was bad 
enough, and in extreme cases exasperating to our 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 183 

own acclimated and experienced specialists and 
general practitioners; but this contagious mono- 
mania goes further yet in being little short of 
heathenish ! Pamphlets composed in hotbeds of the 
disease — East Texas, for instance — are scattered 
broadcast through the dry, sun-baked, aseptic at- 
mosphere of West Texas and New Mexico, prompt- 
ly producing pop-eyed hysteria in the hitherto tran- 
quil inhabitants. Suggestion indeed ! Pity 'tis that 
the pendulum of human opinion takes so long to 
settle into place ! We who have risen up and sat down 
these many years with the consumptive, we who 
have taken sensible precautions in our intercourse 
with him and we who have taken none, may have 
found such intercourse oftentimes very unpleasant 
but would in all probability fail to present one soli- 
tary case of tuberculosis, either contracted or spor- 
adic, among Americans long resident in this section, 
provided they did not settle here for cause, i. e., for 
tuberculous cause. The Mexicans, they and their 
Chihuahua dogs, are acutely susceptible to the dis- 
ease. If, by chance, an American is mentioned as 
being tuberculous, searching inquiry proves that 
the person in question is either a relapsed health- 
seeker of long standing, or the offspring of health- 
seekers. This, at least, has been my experience. 

That our residential population should wake to 
possible dangers is very right, mete and proper and 
our bounden duty, if only this waking up be kept 
within decent, nay Christian bounds. Hygiene is 
wise and good; cowardly and insenate terror can- 
not be thus classified. 



184 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

As a matter of fact the Mesilla Valley, taking 
as its central point Las Cruces, lies ready to the 
hand for development into a pleasure resort for 
wealthy tourists. But the hand is itself conspicuous 
by its absence. Home talent, even if by chance am- 
bitious, is incapable of such far-seeing, wide-em- 
bracing work, and has neither the necessary exper- 
ience nor the faintest idea of the up-to-the-minute 
tourist's demands. The Easterner in particular ex- 
pects a good deal, whether he travel by rail or motor- 
car. A certain small community not a thousand 
miles distant was several years ago either exploited 
by outsiders or exploited itself, and now reaps a 
golden harvest. Its natural beauties which are not 
greater than those of the Mesilla Valley — indeed 
are in one respect inferior as it has not the attrac- 
tion of a river bordered with cultivated farms- - 
are made the most of. The large proportion 
of the residents take pride in their homes 
and one passes betwixt blooming gardens, 
and houses, however small, architecturally taste- 
ful, and rests in little parks, set out with shade- 
trees carefully chosen for quick growth. The grav- 
el trails which abound on all our western mesas are 
widened into fine roads, and the scenic beauties 
of the mountains are easily accessible either by pri- 
vate car or public stage. There are hotels not only 
run on up-to-date lines, but which please the eye 
within and without. This pleasing of the eye is a 
matter unwisely neglected in our section, rich 
though it be in natural beauty. The tourist admires 
mountain and valley, samples the small town with its 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 185 

small town outlook, shakes his head and proceeds 
upon his way — his way being the Borderland Route, 
running from El Paso and past the Elephant Butte 
Dam and so on and on. By this route pass numbers 
of overland tourists, day by day, right through our 
town. The eastern tourist's first cost is costly, if he 
is to be caught and held month after month as that 
other community holds him, but he pays — richly, 
full measure running over. 



CHAPTER XV. 
DAWN AND DARK 

It is a very early train and high altitude nights 
are apt to be frosty, but we take it nevertheless so 
that we may have a long day in the border city. 
And after it is over — the aggravation of arising in 
the dark and eating a farcical breakfast by lamp- 
light — we are glad about that senselessly planned 
train. For we have beholden with eyes wide open 
the dawn and sunrise glories of earth and sky, both 
more daring and esoteric in winter than in summer. 

We are also glad that a neighbor drives us to 
the station thus permitting us to snuggle into our 
furs while he pilots his ponies along the deserted 
roads. Scarcely do we speak. Speech seems out 
of place in this weird, unknown Valley of the Sha- 
dow. Once a voice cries softly, as if fearing to 
wake a sleeping child, "Look!" And — '*Do you re- 
member the sunset last night?" murmurs another. 
We all remember, common as those nightly pag- 
eants are. 

For above the Organ Peaks lingers yet the ros- 
eate reflection of that sunset, though now at dawn 
it is as if a full, wet brush of crimson lake had been 
drawn lightly over a background of greenish blue — 
the greener the colder. The eastern sky is thus ten- 
derly dyed, whilst lower down behind the moun- 
tain range smoulder the ashes of a gigantic bonfire. 




..e^..tJ^Si. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 187 

Every rock and hollow clear yet ethereal, the peaks 
against that coppery q-low rise delicately heaven- 
ward in points of silver blue. 

Yet the A/'alley still sleeps, frostbound, shrouded, 
silent. 

Beautiful visions come to at least one of us as 
our eaze seems to dip, bathe, lose itself in the beauti- 
ful sky — not all dreams as we idly term them but 
visions which, if not wholly of heaven are surely 
not all of earth — lofty aspirations, beatific flights, 
tinging with rose color life's duties and abnega- 
tions, brinofine the unattainable within our reach, 
the highest within our possibilities. 

Then at last the eastern fires blaze up into a light- 
er, brighter flame, devouring in their upward course 
all tenderer hues. The wide Valley assumes the 
garb of day, and then, joyous and dazzling, the 
unclouded sun springs into a sky of now^ vivid blue. 

"The wonders of the wonderful country!" 

No one replies, and in silence we drive up to the 
station platform and resume our mundane habits of 
thought; for we have mau}^ errands, not omitting 
those for the benefit of our friends, the health- 
seekers. 

And on these brief forty-four mile trips to El 
Paso — a large and ever growing city whose boast 
is that it is up-to-the-minute, in all material thines 
at least — my mind projects itself rather into the 
past than into present or future. Thus mentally I 
journey into a past so dim that I find myself in pre- 
historic ages, among forgotten peoples — pastoral 
races who irrigated this fertile Vale by ways and 



188 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

means from which we have not ,^reatly deviated, as 
is evidenced by the traces of irrig"ation plants re- 
ferred to in an earlier chapter, plants destroyed im- 
doubtedly by volcanic action. Throug-hout south- 
eastern New Mexico the results of such action are 
widespread — said indeed by competent authorities 
to be the most extraordinary of their kind in the 
world. Volcanic dams yet discernible prove to the 
satisfaction of many g-eologists that the still wilful 
Rio Grande once spilled itself over the brim of the 
western mesa into the Mexican basin, but was 
forced by the above mentioned eruptions to eat its 
way throug^h the rocky range to the south, thus 
formin.c; the present narrow canon leading- into Tex- 
as and finally to the Gulf. In our Valley are some 
who believe in the existence of a Lost River flowing 
in the depths of the earth to which it was consigned 
by the same tremendous upheavals. That such 
buried streams do exist in certain portions of New 
Mexico is incontrovertible. 

In more recent times, driven down to- the Valley 
of the Great River by the ruthless and predatory 
Athabascans, progenitors of the more modern 
Apaches, came representatives of comparatively 
peaceful and industrial races, from whom spring 
the Pueblos, Zunis, Queres, Pimas and other allied 
tribes. Many of these, however, took refuee in 
cave or cliff dwellings or on the summits of lofty 
monoliths a few hundred miles to the north of us. 
On one such monolith stands, inhabited by the 
Acomas to this day, perhaps the finest pueblo in the 
South West. From these high vantage grounds the 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 189 

industrious nations repelled their foes, cultivated 
the rich lands below when permitted so to do, and 
in many instances came off victorious from strug- 
gles with those original robbers, for the reason that 
they were fore-handed after the manner of care- 
ful ranching persons and usually had a supply of 
food and water laid by for stormy days. And not 
only were they agriculturists but marvellous weav- 
ers, and unsurpassed in craftsmanship with gold 
and silver, which metals, together with precious 
stones, they knew how to extract from the earth. 
The Mexican of my ranching days wove ar- 
tistically attractive rugs, which he brought to my 
door and sold at a given price per pound. But he 
was always careful to explain that it was he and 
not his Indian kinsman who was responsible for 
the ravishing shades of blue woven into the rugs; 
for the Indian regards blue as a color of ill omen. 
The bugbear of American Progress gobbled up this 
artistic industry long ago. 

I see El Paso del Norte and the Valley as they 
were late in the eighteenth century and early in the 
nineteenth — just as Humboldt saw them or as de- 
scribed by a much more recent writer* — El Paso, a 
pleasant settlement, from which carriages proceed- 
ed easily up the Rio Grande Valley to Santa Fe, the 
capital of the Spanish Province as it is of the 
American State: 

''The scenery was remarkable for its mountain- 
ous features and groves of cottonwood, mesquite 
and fresh poplars along the fertile banks of this 
river, which assumes great size and volume when 

*Horatio O. Ladd. 



190 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

filled with the melting snows of the Rocky moun- 
tains." 

The same old undependable Fierce River which, 
ere the building of the Dam might fail us in our 
hour of need, leaving only its bed across which a 
man could walk dryshod, or rising might suddenly 
engulf him before he had time to cry Peccavi! Or 
almost as suddenly it might wash away part 
of El Paso and leagues of railroad, leaving hun- 
dreds of persons homeless and ourselves cut off from 
communication with the outside world. Still do this 
old river's exasperating ways remain an enigma to 
the stranger (unless he consult the Oldest Inhabi- 
tant, which he is not like to do), piling up sand 
where least expected and obliterating the labor of 
months. 

But Humboldt's enthusiasm was unmarred, and 
he proceeds: 

"The environs of El Paso are delicious, and re- 
semble the finest parts of Andalusia. The fields 
are cultivated with maize and wheat, and the vine- 
yards produce such excellent, sweet wines that they 
are even preferred to the wines of Parras in New 
Biscay." 

The "excellent sweet wines" were the outcome 
of Franciscan Friars' energy and skill, when they 
introduced the luscious Mission grape, now like 
the wines sadly deteriorated in quality. 

"The gardens contain in abundance all the fruits 
of Europe — figs, peaches, apples and pears. As 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 191 

the country is very dry a canal of irrigation brings 
the water of the Rio del Norte to the Paso." 

Thus along this broad Vale, finding smooth and 
easy traveling beside the Great River, the feet of 
bvsrone o:enerations "whose bones are dust" have 
passed and passed again, within sight and sound of 
my brown ranch house — nay even perhaps through 
its orchards and meadows, so capricious has been 
the River's course. 

But a few miles, too, from my ranch did the 
Texas Invincibles leave their wounded, to be gath- 
ered up when they returned, a draggled crew, adown 
the Valley of the Rio Grande. During the Civil 
War Texas looked confidently to New Mexico to 
wave the Southern flag, but the sins of her own 
sons — white adventurers and^'bad men" from Texas 
— made the very name of that State an evil odor 
in the nostrils of both Indian and Mexican, and a 
sullen silence answered her appeal. Without en- 
thusiasm but likewise without wavering the Terri- 
tory retained her grasp on the skirts of the Union, 
and Texan dreams of conquest were forever buried 
in the desert sands. To this hour the New Mexican 
Mexican is not over fond of the Texan, though the 
Mexican from Mexico is apt to find himself at ease 
in the Lone Star State. 

But the distrust of New Mexico dates further 
back yet — back to 1841, during the Spanish occu- 
pation when the Texans attempted to annex New 
Mexico. It gathered strength in the war with 
Mexico — that war denounced by such men as Web- 
ster, Grant and their like as "unholy, unjust and 



192 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

unprovoked!" And to this day the rightful bound- 
ary between the two States is a subject of dispute, 
and still before the Courts. At a date not too far 
removed from the present to render the telling of it 
inapt the following incident occurred: a prominent 
New Mexico attorney was cross-examining a wit- 
ness in a murder case. Having asked a few ques- 
tions he suddenly put the one — "Where did you say 
you came from?'' "From Texas." "That is all. You 
can sit down," said the lawyer. And in his argu- 
ment to the jury he more than hinted that as the man 
came from Texas he was not trustworthy ! On the 
other hand it may be remarked that as the Lone 
Star State is large enough to absorb all the New 
England States without winking, there is room for 
variety in Texans. Despite such altogether reason- 
able surmise, however, it was often asserted that 
Texan jealousy and obstinacy not only hindered 
the development of the Mesilla Valley but retarded 
the building of the Dam. El Paso wanted the Dam 
dow^n the Valley instead of up, and on the Govern- 
ment finally deciding for itself the hatchet was per- 
force buried. 

And now once again the present hour looms 
large ; for we are nearing El Paso. The last of the 
Rockies are on the left, the ranges of Mexico on 
the right, and so — inaccurately enough from a topo- 
graphical, geological and geographical standpoint — « 
we are no longer in New Mexico. Here the rear- 
guard of the Rockies make their final stand — senti- 
nels resting on their arms after eons of restless- 
ness, alternating periods of volcanism and sub- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 193 

mersion by forgotten seas. At their feet throbs 
now the heart of a smoky modern city and a grim 
river pushing its way through a rockbound canon. 
The pigmy, man, drives blasts into massive walls 
piled up by the stupendous, secret labor of the ages, 
and abstracts in pigmy wagons fragments of the 
Eternal Hills. 

Cortes, who cannot well be left behind owing 
to an inadequate partiality for human companion- 
ship taken in the general, rises in his basket as the 
brakeman yells the name of the last station and 
vigorously shakes his collar. The brakeman grins 
appreciatively. 

"That's a smart little feller !" he whispers in my 
ear. ''Always lays low this way till I call this last 
stop, for he knows it's too late to put him off 
now !" 

But the ways of Cortes, like his mysterious an- 
cestry, are often past finding out, as are those of 
his son, Montezuma. Suffice it to say that he does 
know, not merely this relatively simple matter of 
stations but others hidden from our mere human 
vision. 

His table manners are so distinguished, also as 
those of his son and contrary to those of the greedy 
and grasping Betsinda, that cafes and restaurants 
look the other way as he slips in and crouches at 
my feet. When I rise to depart from a Chinese 
resort a China boy hands me a package of scraps, 
with the smiling observation — "For the leetle dog!" 
Cortes recognizes furthermore the fine distinction 



194 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

to be drawn between eating places, and at an Ameri- 
can cafe accepts discreetly and mutely the morsels 
I "sneak'' under the table, whereas he is liable to 
advance boldly to meet the more kindly Chinaman. 
For the custom of showing kindness to domestic 
animals was for long viewed as a weakness in this 
section. 

By the toothpick waggling its way along the pub- 
lic streets do we know that the normal dinnerhour 
is nearly over and ours about to begin. In a private 
dining room off the main room in which w^e take 
our seats and await the attentions of handmaidens 
more importantly engaged with the other sex, some 
Business Man's Club is concluding its monthly 
luncheon. The men are typically Western, despite 
the probability that many of them are Easterners. 
Never except in the pure Gallic race may one behold 
such a variety of expression, such speaking coun- 
tenances and gestures, as in this portion of the Far 
West. The Mexican is voluble and pantomimic, 
but his range is limited. Once in Boston I watched 
the elder Coquelin and another Frenchman play out 
a little drama in absolute silence. It was perfectly 
comprehensible though not a word was uttered. 
And now, not for the first time, such a scene is re- 
created for me by American business men. They 
talk, but what they say is inaudible at this distance. 
Absorbed in their own affairs they are dead to the 
outside world. When one beyond my range of 
vision speaks, the men within it lean forward, each 
face a separate study, tense with its individual 
emotions, opinions — nerves as keen as those of a 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 195 

greyhound on the leash! One and all unconscious 
Coquelins! Clearly some plan of action was being 
discussed, of which approval, disapproval, enthusi- 
asm on one side or the other occupied the entire 
mentality of every man present. This is the kind 
of transformation often effected by our Western 
atmosphere. Ironed out of the faces of men are 
restraint, neutrality, conventionality. We see the 
real man without the mask, and can make a pretty 
fair guess as to his thoughts. 

Thus do I, after my manner, my companions with 
magazines, while away one of those tedious inter- 
vals which are the appointed lot of womankind. 

The sun has already set when we disembark 
at our home station, a merry party laden with bun- 
dles suggestively feminine. Twilight broods ere 
we are well started, but it is not the twilight that 
precedes the dawn. 

On the contrary, there is something in the swift 
on-stealing of these nights, in face of the lingering 
colors of the sunset sky, that has in it an element of 
relentlessness. Day has hushed itself beneath a 
dome the tint of a sparrow's egg, gilt edged where 
the huge orb has passed. The gray hand is once 
more laid upon our Valley. Cottonwoods yet re- 
taining their November fires pale from gold to 
primrose. It is night; the bright day is over; we 
must hasten homeward. 

The sombre quiet of evening brings with it at 
times a vague, crushing sense of finality, a nameless 
apprehension — the heritage, it is to be supposed, of 



196 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

impressionable natures. Fortunate are they who 
have in such moments the comradeship of a com- 
prehending^ heart ; fortunate also they who have be- 
fore their eyes, will they only raise them, the nightly 
miracle of the resurrection! 

For suddenly — unexpectedly to those who know 
them not — the mountains flash upon the sig-ht. This 
is their final and consummating- hour. Battlement 
after battlement, peak after peak, catch the unearth- 
ly radiance. Fastnesses of pink and pearl, castles 
never reared by human hands — enchanted, evanes- 
cent. From the night enfolded levels we watch with 
suspended breath. The glory fades; already the 
mountains' feet wax dim. The shroud creeps up 
nnd up. . . . 

All is over, and we fly to our brown ranch house 
through nipping, frosty air. 



CHAPTER XVI 
MOUNTAINEERS 

Our New Mexican mountains present for the 
most part fronts built up into inaccessible preci- 
pices. On fair days — and these too numerous for 
the counting- — the high heaven seems to have drop- 
ped fragments of its azure self into the deep clefts 
and hollows of the rocks, so blue are the shadows, 
so glittering and withal so unreal the peaks of por- 
phyry. With that indifference peculiar to our des- 
ert scenery, so insistent that it forces reiterated 
emphasis and which is mitigated no whit by its 
orgies of color, it has looked unmoved upon every 
form of human struggle and suffering. Yet even 
to this day we raise our eyes unto the hills — to the 
splendid hidden heart of them, which continues to 
have neither part nor lot in us or our lives which 
endure but for a day. 

And jogging valleyward on his low headed "son 
of the sage brush" rides the denizen of mystic 
peaks! Behold him and wonder! For he has as 
little part or lot in them as they in him. 

In memory we return to the soft tree-clothed 
heights of the Virginia Blue Ridge raneing in alti- 
tude to some 6000 feet above sea level, thus leaving 
off at a point where the moimtains of New Mexico 
start; for the averasfe elevation of this State is 
around 5000 to 6000 feet. The narrow, broken val- 



198 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

leys of the Blue Ridge — inhabited, and cultivated 
in so far as the often exhausted soil permits — 
have nothing- in common with the broad, fertile 
vales of Southern New Mexico. And not only the 
valleys but those rounded Virginia mountains wear 
an air of peace and home, of neighborliness, to 
which our Western mountains make no claim, or 
ever will if Nature has her way. The woods upon 
the Blue Ridge glow with the colors of the Fall, fold 
about them during the brief winters veils of rich 
and varied brown, and in the Springtime toss silvery 
stars of dogwood to the gentle, exquisite sky. The 
leafy masses are spaced with verdant pastures, or 
streaked in their descent toward the valleys with 
the crimson ribbons of Virginia roads. And yet — 
down from these peaceful, homelike heights rides 
a "dark complected" silent person, his black slouch 
hat pulled over his brows, his family following — 
two, or maybe three, of them to a horse — the woman 
probably smoking a corncob pipe in the depths of a 
black sunbonnet, and the little towheads staring at 
the stranger with eyes for whose forget-me-not blue 
neither of the parents appear to be responsible. 

Thus rides a man of mystery from the seemingly 
kind heart of the Blue Ridge. 

Yet even as the Virginia mountains secrete rocky 
dens in their sheltering woods — to which woods 
many a time we have climbed, carrying lunches tied 
to our saddles, perpendicular ascents meaning noth- 
iuGf to a A^irginia bred horse — so does her man of 
mystery expand on occasion — to some congenial 
stranger, eager to take potluck with his host in a 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 199 

rude log cabin so that he may whip the mountain 
streams for trout. To this type of "furriner," as 
the mountaineer dubs him, the host will hold forth 
lengthily over the chip fire at night or under the 
stars, thus furnishing much racy material to the 
auditor capable of appreciating and remembering it. 
The mountaineer of the South is himself, and only 
himself — "difiPerent," as the saying is. 

Not so the South Western mountaineer, though 
he has his points. But the types have little in com- 
mon. The Southerner, no matter how poororplain, 
will enthuse at the sight of a blooded horse. In- 
numerable times have I reined in my thoroughbred 
mare on some lonely woodland road that a man driv- 
ing a sorry team to an old wagon may get down and 
go over her exhaustivelv and judicially, discuss 
everv detail and demand her pedi-^Tee while handl- 
ing her with positive adoration. "Howdy, Mam!" 
was the usual greeting. "Whah' you buy that fine 
mah' ?" The passion for a good horse is a passion 
with everv trueborn Viro"inian, having its origin 
probablv in his English ancestrv and fostered by 
the old-time planters, whose constant custom it was 
to imoort thoroup'hbreds and from such noble stock 
build up strains of their own. each strain named for 
the plantation responsible for it. The Western 
mountaineer would look on such foolishness with 
contempt, and boast himself solely on the utility 
of the uncomely beast that drags or carries him six- 
tv or so miles per diem, as also on its abilitv to en- 
dure hardship or even ill usafre. Good blood has 
no appeal for him, and his horse eye is conspicuous 



200 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

by its absence. Yet even as regards ordinary utility 
I myself have known hig-hbred Virginia horses who 
could "hit the long- trail and keep a-goin" as tire- 
lessly as any cow pony of them all, and that too 
through bottomless Virginia mud such as is never 
encountered on the mountain trails of New Mexico. 

As for matching mountain ideas of honesty — 
both are peculiar to themselves. For instance: we, 
together with our Virginian neighbors, found it 
impossible to turn our premium winning sheep out 
to graze in the mountains, even though much of the 
said pasture was our own property. The mountain 
people held tenaciously to the opinion that pedigreed 
sheep were as other sheep — just mutton. Conse- 
quently the mountaineers killed and ate them. Yet 
here follows another Blue Ridge incident, equally 
typical and veracious: a man from the valleys met 
a mountaineer driving a fat steer, and expressed 
a wish to buy the animal, but added that he had not 
the purchase price in his pocket. 

"Best carry the critter right along now," quoth 
the owner. 

"But T don't have a dollar on me." 

"Wa-a-1,"— indifferently— "that ain't nothin' to 
worry over. Carry the critter home, and some day 
when you-all's ridin' this-er way, set the money in 
that thar holler tree." 

"But someone else may get it!" 

"Tech anythin' as belongs to me?" — this with 
scorn inexpressible — "No. siree-Bob! We-all ain't 
acquainted with sech lowdown, ornery ways o' doin' ! 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 201 

You set the money thar, an' it'll stay till I git ready 
to come after hit." 

I wish that it were possible to relate some of my 
personal experiences with our South Western 
mountaineers; for though commonly accounted 
lawless such experiences would be a bit astonishing 
to their detractors. Such scraps of local history, 
however, might prove tiresome to "furrin' " read- 
ers. Suffice it to say that in all my dealings with 
mountaineers, come down to the Valley for pur- 
poses of their own, I encountered nothing but the 
strictest honesty, and even in one special emergency 
genuine chivalry. The emergency was such that 
friends in town begged me, almost with tears, to 
leave my ranch, part of the house being occupied by 
a mountain family and temporary cowboy visitors, 
and seek safety with them. I declined the invita- 
tion, asserting that no matter what might happen — 
and things were happening at that juncture — I had 
never felt so secure, so well protected, in my usually 
unprotected existence. These mountaineers might 
be under suspicion — the story is too long to relate 
here — but, rough and unlettered though they were, 
I had received at their hands such chivalrous treat- 
ment, such genuine courtesy as could not be ex- 
celled, possibly not matched, elsewhere in that sec- 
tion. The sequel proved that I was not mistaken; 
I slept that night without fear, and my confidence 
was more than justified. 

In a sense, however, our mountaineers are un- 
doubtedly lawless. They do not, like the Southern 
mountain people, hold grudges from one generation 



202 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

to another, and when they commit murder do so for 
what appears to them lawful and sufhcient reason. 
In any case, homicides are all too frequent through- 
out these United States and too rarely punished. 
But the mountaineers pursue a course of their own 
in the customary evasion of the law, and when 
sheriffs are sent after them they stand together to 
a man, cattlemen included, and if they do decide to 
give themselves up it is with the serene conscious- 
ness that no mountain witness will be found to testi- 
fy against them ! 

Were we to pursue those ethereally blue shadows 
on our porphyry mountains to their deepest depths, 
we should find that many of them are formed by 
caiion diving into the apparently uninhabited 
steeps — some green with wild grasses and oats, and 
tinkling with tiny streams from which the casually 
industrious mountaineer irrigates his crop patches 
of potatoes or the like, and timbered with cedar, 
pinon, juniper, and ash trees of various kinds. In 
such pockets the intermittent labor of the mountain 
man reaps reward in harmony with his sense of the 
fitness of things. Where the streams are larger he 
erects saw mills and becomes prosperous, also in 
accordance with his simple requirements. Further 
north the woods transform themselves into forests, 
filled with game — often also bear and mountain 
lion — for the diversion of the hunter, and the moun- 
tain creeks furnish sport for the lover of the rod and 
fly. As time goes on, more and more of "the tired 
business man" species from eastern cities will dis- 
cover the enchantments and diversions of the New 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 203 

Mexican mountains. Cloudcroft, a New Mexican 
resort nearly 10,000 feet above the sea, with its 
mountain climbing railroad, magnificent views un- 
hampered by fogs, fine timber and masses of wild 
flowers, is already dotted with the summer homes 
of El Paso people and offers hotels and boarding 
houses for the entertainment of the more distant 
visitor from other sections. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE HIGH RANGES 

"If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep 

Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 

Go to the hills!—" 

When I abandon my seat at the wheel of my 
roadster in favor of R, I feel that I am out for the 
Great Adventure, perhaps because he is so young. 
Therefore when one winter Sunday, immediately 
after midday dinner he called up to know if I would 
like to take "a little drive" 1 was a wee bit disap- 
pointed. No "little drive" for me! 

We started, both in our "go-to-meetings," an- 
ticipating no adventure. Up, up we bowled, round- 
ing the curves of the excellent if somewhat danger- 
ous road modern ingenuity has constructed up the 
mesa, then spinning along the trail past our favorite 
haunt where grow the amolc^. But today we do 
not pause to burn out possible rattlesnakes hiber- 
nating in dead and fallen soapweed so that I may 
say that at the long last I have beheld a rattler in 
the flesh — and maybe they are all out walking in the 
balmy sunshine. 

On, on, the Valley on our left, the Dona Ana 
mountains ahead and on our right the blue Organs 
streaked with glittering snow. We arrive at the 
first gate of the 250,000 acre cattle range, and give 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 205 

the car a chance to breathe; for it has been a long 
pull and a strong pull. Here we sit, both of us con- 
tent to revel in the beauty of the land we love, to 
watch the changeful mountains, sometimes talking, 
more often silent, listening to the murmur of the 
scarcely perceptible wind in the tall grass of these 
wide and solitary places. 

At length the spirit of adventure starts to swell 
within my breast. 

*'How far is it to the home ranch?" I inquire. 

"About seventeen miles further." 

"Well, let's go on! Jump out and open the gate 
and I'll drive through." 

This feat accomplished and my chauffeur once 
more at the wheel his spirit too begins to rise. 

"I tell you what we'll do — we'll go around the 
mountain instead !" — the mountain, being the huge 
"tumble of rocks" yclept the Dofia Ana thrown up 
by volcanic action from the Valley beneath and the 
"bald prairie" above — "It's a long way round 
and I don't remember the trail very well but will 
you take chances?" 

Would I! 

"Well then," pointing to an interminable line of 
telephone poles walking off into the unseen, "We 
must go on five or six miles to the first spring and 
ask the cow-boy there which road to follow. It must 
be one of these trails to the west and we shall be 
obliged to come back on our tracks." 

And while we fly upon our way, opening more 
gates and meeting the ranch manager driving his 
family to town, R. explains that the so-called 



206 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

sprin^^s on the ran^s^e, six in number, are in reality 
wells, dus: at .qreat expense and equipped with pump- 
inof plants. At each sprin,^ dwells a cowboy in a 
tent. No longer does he ride the range, except on- 
special occasions such as rounding up for shipping 
and so forth, for the range is fenced both within 
and without and it is the business of the fence rider 
to care for the fences. The tent cowboy looks after 
and waters the stock inside his special domain, be- 
tween which and that of his fellow several miles 
intervene. 

At last we come to the first spring. Some Texas 
longhorns are standing around awaiting the local 
market, tough stuff we unhappy locals are destined 
to chew on, but the man in charge must be occupied 
with the bunch of Durhams we descry penned in a 
corral further on, for his cozy tent is empty. The 
thoroughbreds, needless to add, are intended for 
our eastern betters; the day is at hand, however, 
when the Valley dwellers will arise in their might 
and demand their rights as human beings. 

R. hunts up the cowboy, and returns with the in- 
formation that the trail does in truth go around the 
mountain. 

Back we go, therefore, opening all gates again 
with the exception of that in the line fence, and then 
turning sharp west plunge into an up grade trail 
whose ruts are worn so deep that it is a gamble 
whether or no the fenders will clear the high places. 
They do clear, and so do we emerge triumphant 
from abysmal gullies criss-crossing our toil- 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 207 

some route ; but this has been one of the times when 
I leave my chauffeur to his reflections. 

The range on either side of us is dotted now with 
stunted trees and bushes, and from out of one, al- 
most within handclasp, flits a mountain wren from 
her nest. 

"A nest in the first week of February !" I exclaim. 

"Yes. At this altitude, six to seven thousand 
feet above sea-level, the birds keep house most of 
the year. And look at the house !" 

A home nest in very truth! Roofed and walled 
snugly, with just a bit of a door for a bit of a bird! 

Gradually we approach the tremendous wall of 
rock which marks the eastern limit of "the moun- 
tain." 

"Why is the shadow on it so velvety? Shadows 
here are generally so sharp and distinct." 

"Wait, and you will see why," enjoins my chauf- 
feur. 

I wait and I do see ; for when we come to a halt 
and look upward to the purple softness of it I per- 
ceive that its sheer face is clothed with desert 
growths — dwarf cedars, Spanish Daggers, grease- 
wood and bunches of gramma grass, and so 
far as mortal eye can discern not an ounce 
of soil to support this vegetation. And right 
in the heart of this overwhelming "tumble of 
rocks" nestles, my chauffeur tells me, a green glade, 
real grass and a living spring — one, and perhaps 
more, of such surprises. But it, or they, is far and 
hard to seek and find, for in the desert country 
Nature guards her secrets jealously. 



208 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

We turn, and look back — eastward. The great 
range swings its thousands of acres down the long 
slope to the feet of the Organ and San Andreas 
mountains — a shimmering sea, here golden, there 
silver or pale amber, according as the sunlight 
strikes or the soil is moist or dry. A vast, silent sea ! 
Yet eloquent enough to those who have ears where- 
with to hear. 

We move forward again, closer still to the giant 
cliff which begins to show its northern edge ser- 
rated like a saw — a grim volcanic rock setting off 
to advantage the delicate, sunlit background of plain 
and mountain — the colorful New Mexican land- 
scape which mocks at cameras, eternally changing, 
invisible clouds trailing over it phantom shadows — 
violet, purple, heliotrope, pale lavender and cobalt! 
Whence come they? Whither go they? And all 
this beneath a sky the hue of a sapphire ! 

We pass through a gate in the line fence and find 
ourselves on another cattle ranch. The trail down 
which we swoop leads east once more instead of 
west. We are not going around the mountain — 
distinctly not. Mildly I comment on this fact. 

''Don't worry!" Thus adjures my chauffeur. 
'Tt will be all right. You see !" 

Worry? I'm not worrying. 

Presently we come to the home ranch. No one 
at home, doors and windows closed. Modern facil- 
ities have done away with the hermit life for cattle- 
men and their families. A bunch of young stock 
lines up to bar our course, blood in every individual 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 209 

eye. The car hums steadily into their ranks and 
one and all take to their heels. 

"Yes, you'd better beat it !" 

Now where are we? The cattle have tramped 
the trail into nothingness. 

'Watch me !" says my chauffeur. 

I watch him. He describes a wide circle with the 
car, then darts like a swallow into a trail at first in- 
visible to me but soon developing into a grand nat- 
ural road, down which we fly at some forty miles 
an hour. 

"Isn't this fine !" he cries. It is very fine, its sole 
drawback being that it runs away from the moun- 
tain instead of passing around it. But I sit back 
and take the goods the gods provide. 

Presently I note symptoms indicating that R. is 
none too sure of the route, and he begins to discuss 
possibilities — that we may, for instance, find it de- 
sirable to take in the Elephant Butte Dam, or even 
run on to Albuquerque, an afternoon drive of per- 
haps two hundred miles. But the fun of the game 
possesses us both, and we don't seem to care much. 

Far ahead another home ranch and a new range 
loom up and a distant line of telephone poles, and 
then of a sudden a Borderland Route post leaps up 
alongside. "Whoa!" is the word, down goes the 
brake and we reverse to read the lettering on the 
white post. The backward finger points south and 
reads, "Las Cruces — El Paso." The one pointing 
north concerns us no wit, for it suggests the end 
of the earth. 

"I was told we'd have to go north for several 



210 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

miles before turning," observes my chauffeur, as he 
deftly swings the car around the arrowhead and 
plunges south. "Now we're on the old Santa Fe 
Trail." 

Wellnigh bottomless are the tracks made by the 
wheels of those prairie schooners of the sturdy pio- 
neers, but the going is fair, and for awhile our con- 
versation lingers with those toiling wagons and the 
thrills of a vanished past absorb us. We behold 
war-painted Indians dashing out from the shelter of 
arroyos and buttes, and feel to our inmost souls the 
solitariness of immense unpeopled spaces. We 
dream backward only to the early eighties when the 
railroad down the Valley was completed. In 
imagination, too, we share the relief and joy of the 
old-timers on catching sight of U. S. Troopers hur- 
rying to the rescue from Fort Selden in the Valley. 
Travelers then by stage or wagon had scant time to 
bestow on the glory and beauty of the high ranges ; 
their business was to press on to the Fort, or to Old 
Mesilla some nineteen miles further south. The 
Old Santa Fe Trail was a warpath in bloody earnest, 
whether it led across high range or desert, or pene- 
trated timber clad walls of rocky canons in whose 
depths strove together not only white man and In- 
dian but Federal and Confederate, American and 
Mexican. 

As we start to climb I hold my peace, for now are 
we verily up against it, and Don't-speak-to-the- 
chauffeur becomes the part of wisdom. This is 
work, not play, for both driver and car. 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 211 

We worm our upward way, in and out, through 
sand to the hubs — heartbreaking sand ! 

"How would you like to camp up here?" R. says 
abruptly. 

"Not bad," I retort by way of encouragement. 

"Warm enough now, but we'd freeze at night!" 
And he speaks no more for a long time. Once 
in a while I steal a glance at him; he looks some- 
what careworn, though the car grinds steadily on. 

"Pull, pull, little old car !" I break forth at' last. 
"Earn your keep !" 

But criticism, even of the faintest, is not ac- 
ceptable. 

"It zvill. Don't worry about this car !" 

It does. We top the crest of the long ascent, and 
with a shout my chauffeur hails the telephone poles 
now close at hand. 

"That's the Government road!" Now we're all 
right !" 

Which goes to prove that we have not always 
been all right. 

And it is a road indeed, worthy of the great gods ! 
Away we go, down, down into the Valley, rounding 
the corners exhilaratingly — all is smooth sailing, 

"Let's coast !" I rashly cry. 

He mutters something and we coast. It is hea- 
ven — until it is not, and we skid with haste and some 
display of violence. A poor driver would have sent 
us into the abyss below, but things being as they are 
I remain calm and unmoved. My present chauf- 
feur mieht conduct me up and down a precipice, and 
I should remain ever calm. 



212 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

"Just what I expected !" he growls, and feeds the 
gas again. 

On, on, we rush, and alight in the Valley along- 
side the Leasburg Diversion Dam on the river, lake 
and western mesa brooding violet blue in the late 
afternoon sun. We are yet seventeen miles north 
of Las Cruces, but what is that after our extensive 
wanderings? We race along the level, passing 
ruined Fort Selden, our souls filled with scorn for 
the humdrum Sunday outing folks, content to prowl 
in their cars through the settled agricultural bot- 
tomlands, while we have been exploring the wilds 
and heights. One after another we hoot at the 
flivvers and pass them by. 

"Prythee why so fast?" I inquire. ''We are short 
of gas, and think how humiliating it would be if a 
Tin Lizard overtook us and we had to plead with it 
for food!" 

"That's why I'm making time," is the retort. "I'm 
going to get back before the gas gives out !" 

Which he does — just! As we slow down at the 
door the indicator on the tank marks only a hairs- 
breadth from O. 

But we had made sixty-five joyful miles on our 
"little afternoon drive." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

CONCLUSION 

CROSSING THE DESERT 

Still — silent — as a world abandoned in the 
fullness of its summer prime ! 

For the boundless plains — sliding into the dis- 
tance like emerald waves doomed never to break on 
any mortal shore, and uplifting here and there car- 
pets of flowers no mortal will ever cull — breathe 
the very essence of life. Renewed and cleansed by 
the fire and fury of midsummer storms neither death 
nor decay has part or lot in them. The mountain 
ranges, split as they soar heavenward into fantastic 
shapes, glow like jewels dropped from the Book of 
Revelations by the Hand that knows not time but 
eternity. 

To the imagination awed by the solemnity of the 
infinite a pillar of dust, created by some mimic 
whirlwind and reddened by the westering sun, walks 
as a pillar of fire, and involuntarily the ear attunes 
itself to the sound of the Still, Small Voice. 

Gazing from the window of the railroad car some 
shining winter day we note the tiny tracks upon the 
sand of the unpeopled country, tracks of tiny crea- 
tures busied each upon his own life's quest, and once 
more the spell is upon us. We would that we could 
say with Fabre : Tell of the intimate terms on which 
I live with you, of the patience with which I record 



214 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 

your actions. We would that for us it. were pos- 
sible, as for another desert lover, to pass weeks 
alone beneath those jewelled peaks, and to have 
given to the world as he has the story of the desert's 
teeming life, its m3^sterious ways, its enveloping 
silences. The jangle of voices around us, the com- 
monplaces of barrenness and monotony, are but as 
the crackling of thorns under a pot. And the gates 
of the soul open wade that the Spirit of the Desert 
may enter in, there to abide for all time : to illumine 
the darkness of troubled nights, to create stillness in 
the centre of life's driving storm, and to bestow 
the peace which passeth understanding when the cry 
of the Human, without and within, urges too 
fiercely. 

For it is good that man should sometimes tarry 
far from the world that is too much with him, in the 
immense solitudes of God's country. As Christ 
went up into the mountain to pray so it is well that 
we should go out into a desert place alone, and there 
pressed close to Nature's breast, even were she nev- 
er so aloof and self sufficing, watch and listen and 
commune with our own hearts, and be still. 

And thus it might be that at the long last all 
things would be made plain. 

The radiant day draws to its close. There, upon 
the battlemented horizon where for uncounted ages 
he has rested in his passing, the sun lingers now, 
bidding farewell to the serried hosts which all day 
long followed him in invisible array from the hither 
brim to the further of the earth's cup. Now flaming 
in coats of many colors they range themselves above 



THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 215 

his sinking head, their rainbowed-hued pennants 
fluttering across high heaven. A moment more and 
he is gone. The rainbow hues gradually, very grad- 
ually, fade. The sky's deep sapphire melts into the 
blue that elsewhere never is o'er land or sea. The 
vast plain darkens. Day is dead. 

And then it is that in "the wonderful country" the 
miracle of resurrection may be seen by those that 
have eyes to see. Slowly an amber light steals up 
from the horizon, touches with unearthly finger 
every bush and sand-hill upon the illimitable rolling 
plain, then as slowly withdraws its radiance, and 
concentrating behind the mountains burns and 
deepens until the whole west is as the glowing em- 
bers of some mighty conflagration. 

Time passes. Then, hurriedly as it were, night 
slips her translucent mantle pierced by a myriad 
stars over earth and heaven. All is over. 

Once in the clear small hours v/e look forth again, 
whilst like some blustering invader our train roars 
through the starlit mysteries and silences of the Un- 
known Land. Undisturbed by our coming, indif- 
ferent to our going, sphynx-like still the Desert 
broods upon her voiceless wastes, her pyramids and 
towers. But her spirit, the Spirit of the Great 
Desert, has entered in. It is ours for all time. 



THE END 



